> 


THE 


BRYANT    FESTIVAL 


AT 


NOVEMBER    5,    M.DCCC.LXIV. 


NEW   YORK  : 
D.    APPLETON     AND     COMPANY, 

443   &   445    BROADWAY. 
M.DCCC.LXV. 


c 


J  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1864,  by 

'THE  CENTURY  ASSOCIATION, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Diftrift  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern  Diftricl 

of  New  York. 


Brgant  festival 


HE  CENTURY,"  of  which  Mr.  BRYANT  was 
one  of  the  original  founders  and  truftees, 
and  remains  an  affiduous  member,  by  a 
spontaneous  movement  resolved  to  seize  the  occafion  of  his 
entrance  into  his  seventieth  year,  to  mark  their  good  will  to 
their  beloved  associate  and  their  pride  in  his  fame.  The 
third  of  November  was  the  day  of  his  birth ;  the  evening 
of  the  fifth  was  sele&ed  for  their  feftival.  Invitations  to  be 
present  were  sent  to  many  of  his  friends  in  various  parts  of 
the  country ;  and,  as  was  expeded,  met  with  the  moft  cor 
dial  responses  and  acceptance.  Some  idea  of  the  defign  got 
abroad,  and  notwithftanding  the  excitement  of  an  impending 
national  ele&ion,  there  were  abundant  evidences  that  it 
touched  the  sympathy  of  the  great  public. 


As  the  company  at  the  appointed  time  entered  the  house 
of  the  Century,  they  found  the  hall  decorated  with  long  and 
graceful  lines  of  feftqons  of  frefli  flowers  and  evergreen. 
The  gallery,  which  was  brilliantly  and  skillfully  lighted,  was 
hung  rcMi-d  with  five-and-twenty  new  pidures,  and  a  work 
in  sculpture,  all  by  members  of  the  Century.  These  were 
"  The  Mischief  Maker"  by  LEUTZE  ;  a  Marine  f^iew,  a  Sea- 
Coaft,  and  a  Sketch  from  Nature,  by  KENSETT  ;  "  The  Seventh 
Regiment  in  Camp"  and  a  Scene  on  the  Coaft  of  Maine,  by 
GIFFORD;  a  Landscape,  by  CROPSEY  ;  "Lonely"  by  HEN- 
NESS  Y  ;  a  portrait,  by  LE  CLEAR  ;  Nahant  Coaft,  and  a  Sketch 
from  Nature,  by  HASELTINE  ;  "  Dogs  and  Rat,"  by  HAYS  ; 
"  Venice,"  by  HUNTINGTON  ;  "  Sunny  Hours,"  by  LANG  ;  "  Read 
ing  the  News,"  and  "  A  Flower-girl,"  by  ROSSITER;  "Evening," 
by  COLMAN;  "By  the  Sea,"  by  BENSON  ;  "Study  of  a  Horse,"  by 
DANA  ;  "  Lady  of  Seville,"  by  HALL  ;  a  portrait,  by  STONE  ;  a 
portrait,  " ^he  Carrier  Pigeon,"  " The  Companions"  and  " In  the 
Woods"  by  HICKS  ;  and  the  model  of  a  horse,  by  BROWN. 

Precisely  at  nine  o'clock,  the  proceilion,  consifting  of  Mr. 
Bryant,  the  guefts  of  the  Century,  and  its  officers,  moved 
into  the  large  saloon,  to  the  mufic  of  a  band  in  the  balcony. 
The  room  was  already  filled  by  about  four  hundred  persons, 
members  of  the  Century,  and  ladies.  The  decorations  were 
exclufively  of  natural  flowers,  which  had  been  sent  by  mem- 


bers  of  the  Association  in  profufion,  as  if  the  season  had 
been  the  laft  of  spring  rather  than  early  winter.  Behind  the 
raised  platform  on  which  Mr.  Bryant  and  the  Prefident  took 
their  seats,  was  a  lyre,  composed  entirely  of  frefli  violets, 
amaranths,  and  immortelles,  and  in  its  firings  the  initials  of 
the  poet's  name  were  written  in  flowers.  Above  the  lyre 
was  his  marble  buft,  crowned  with  laurel.  Upon  the  walls 
were  hung  various  passages  from  his  poems,  inscribed  on 
tablets  in  letters  of  gold.  Among  others  equally  appropriate 
were  these : 

In  such  a  bright,  late  quiet  would  that  I 

Might  wear  out  life  like  thee,  'mid  bowers  and  brooks, 
And  dearer  yet,  the  sunmine  of  kind  looks, 

And  mufic  of  kind  voices  ever  nigh. 


For  thou  haft  taught  us  with  delighted  eye, 
To  gaze  upon  the  mountains — to  behold 

With  deep  affe&ion  the  pure,  ample  fky, 
And  clouds  along  its  blue  abysses  rolled — 

To  love  the  song  of  waters,  and  to  hear 

The  melody  of  winds  with  charmed  ear. 


His  love  of  truth,  too  warm,  too  ftrong 
For  Hope  or  Fear  to  chain  or  chill, 

His  hate  of  Tyranny  and  wrong, 
Burn  in  the  breads  he  kindled,  ftill. 


Let  the  mimic  canvas  {how 
His  calm,  benevolent  features ;  let  the  light 
Stream  o'er  his  deeds  of  love,  that  fhunned  the  fight 

Of  all  but  Heaven ;  and  in  the  book  of  fame 
The  glorious  record  of  his  virtues  write, 
And  hold  it  up  to  men,  and  bid  them  claim 
A  palm  like  his,  and  catch  from  him  the  hallowed  flame. 

No  sooner  had  the  mufic  ceased,  than  the  Prefident  rose, 
and  amidft  every  evidence  of  the  unanimous  adhelion  of  the 
audience,  spoke  as  follows  : 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT  : 

The  Century  has  set  apart  this  evening  to  {how  you  honor. 
All  its  members,  the  old  and  the  young,  crowd  around  you  like 
brothers  round  a  brother — like  children  round  a  father.  Our 
wives  and  daughters  have  come  with  us,  that  they,  too,  may  join 
in  the  pleasant  office  of  bearing  witness  to  your  worth.  The 
artists  of  our  association,  whose  labors  you  have  ever  been  ready 
to  cheer,  whose  merits  you  have  loved  to  proclaim,  unite  to  bring 
an  enduring  memorial  to  your  excellence  in  an  art  near  akin  to 
their  own.  A  noble  band  of  your  compeers  in  your  own  high 
calling,  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  offer  their  salutations  and 
praise  and  good  wimes  in  a  full  chorus  of  respecl:  and  affection. 
Others,  who  could  not  accept  our  invitation,  keep  the  feftival  by 
themselves,  and  are  now  in  their  own  homes  going  over  the  years 
which  you  have  done  so  much  to  gladden. 

It  is  primarily  your  career  as  a  poet  that  we  celebrate.  The 
moment  is  well  chosen.  While  the  mountains  and  the  ocean  fide 


ring  with  the  tramp  of  cavalry  and  the  din  of  cannon,  and  the 
nation  is  in  its  agony,  and  an  earthquake  sweeps  through  the  land, 
we  take  a  respite  to  escape  into  the  serene  region  of  ideal  pursuits 
which  can  never  fail. 

It  has  been  thought  praise  enough  of  another  to  say  that  he 
"  wrote  no  line  which  dying  he  could  wifh  to  blot."  Every  line 
which  you  have  written  may  be  remembered  by  yourself  and  by 
others  at  all  times,  for  your  genius  has  liftened  only  to  the  whisper 
ings  of  the  beautiful  and  the  pure. 

Moreover,  a  warm  nationality  runs  through  all  your  verse. 
Your  imagination  took  the  hue  of  the  youth  of  our  country,  and 
has  reflected  its  calm  contemplative  moods,  when  the  pulses  of  its 
early  life  beat  vigoroufly  but  smoothly,  and  no  bad  paffions  had 
diftorted  its  countenance.  The  claming  whirlwinds  of  civil  war, 
the  sublime  energy  and  perseverance  of  the  people,  the  martyrdom 
of  myriads  of  its  braveft  and  beft,  its  new  birth  through  terrible 
sufferings,  will  give  a  more  paffionate  and  tragic  and  varied  caft  to 
the  literature  of  the  coming  generations.  A  thousand  years  hence 
pofterity  will  turn  to  your  pages  as  to  those  which  beft  mirror  the 
lovely  earneftness  of  the  rifmg  republic,  the  sweet  mufings  of  her 
years  of  innocence,  when  (he  was  all  unfamiliar  with  sorrow,  bright 
with  the  halo  of  promise,  seizing  the  great  solitudes  by  the  busy 
hofts  of  civilization,  and  guiding  the  nations  of  the  earth  into  the 
pleasant  paths  of  freedom  and  of  peace. 

You  have  derived  your  inspiration  as  a  poet  from  your  love  of 
nature,  and  me  has  returned  your  affection  and  blessed  you  as  her 
favored  son.  At  three  score  and  ten  years  your  eye  is  undimmed, 
your  ftep  light  and  free  as  in  youth,  and  the  lyre  which  ever 
responded  so  willingly  to  your  touch  refuses  to  leave  your  hand. 


8 


Our  tribute  to  you  is  to  the  poet ;  but  we  fhould  not  have  paid 
it  had  we  not  revered  you  as  a  man.  Your  blameless  life  is  a 
continuous  record  of  patriotism  and  integrity ;  and  palling  un 
touched  through  the  fiery  conflicts  that  grow  out  of  the  ambition 
of  others,  you  have,  as  all  agree,  preserved  a  perfect  confiftency 
with  yourself,  and  an  unswerving,  unselfifti  fidelity  to  your  con 
victions. 

This  is  high  praise,  but  the  period  at  which  we  address  you 
removes  even  the  suspicion  of  flattery,  for  it  is  your  entrance  upon 
your  seventieth  year.  It  is  a  solemn  thing  to  draw  nearer  and 
nearer  to  eternity  ;  you  teach  us  how  to  meet  old  age.  With  each 
year  you  have  become  more  and  more  genial,  have  cherimed  larger 
and  ftill  larger  sympathies  with  your  fellow-men,  and  if  time  has 
set  on  you  any  mark,  you  preserve  in  all  its  frefhness  the  youth  of 
the  soul. 

What  remains  but  to  wifh  you  a  long-continued  life,  crowned 
with  health  and  prosperity,  with  happiness  and  honour  ?  Live  on 
till  you  hear  your  children's  children  rise  up  and  call  you  blessed. 
Live  on  for  the  sake  of  us,  your  old  associates,  for  whom  life 
would  lose  much  of  its  luftre  in  lofing  you  as  a  companion  and 
friend.  Live  on  for  your  own  sake,  that  you  may  enjoy  the  better 
day  of  which  your  eye  already  catches  the  dawn.  Where  faith 
discerned  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  the  unbeliever  looked  only  on 
a  man  of  sorrows,  crowned  with  thorns,  and  tottering  under  the 
burden  of  the  cross  on  which  he  was  to  die.  The  social  fkeptic 
sees  America  fitting  apart  in  her  affliction,  ftung  by  vipers  at  her 
bosom,  and  welcomed  to  the  pit  by  "  earth's  ancient  kings ;  "  but 
through  all  the  anguifh  of  her  grief  you  teach  us  to  behold  her  in 
immortal  beauty,  as  me  fteps  onward  through  trials  to  brighter 


glory.  Live  to  enjoy  her  coming  triumph,  when  the  acknowledged 
power  of  right  fhall  tear  the  root  of  sorrow  out  of  the  heart  of  the 
country,  and  make  her  more  than  ever  the  guardian  of  human 
liberty  and  the  regenerator  of  the  race. 

MR.  BRYANT'S  REPLY  TO  MR.  BANCROFT. 

I  thank  you,  Mr.  Prefident,  for  the  kind  words  you  have 
uttered,  and  I  thank  this  good-natured  company  for  having  liftened 
to  them  with  so  many  tokens  of  assent  and  approbation.  I  muft 
suppose,  however,  that  moft  of  this  approbation  was  beftowed  upon 
the  orator  rather  than  upon  his  subject.  He  who  has  brought  to 
the  writing  of  our  national  hiftory  a  genius  equal  to  the  vaftness 
of  the  subject,  has  of  course  more  than  talent  enough  for  humbler 
talks.  I  wonder  not,  therefore,  that  he  fhould  be  applauded  this 
evening  for  the  (kill  he  has  fhown  in  embelliming  a  barren  topic. 

I  am  congratulated  on  having  completed  my  seventieth  year. 
Is  there  nothing  ambiguous,  Mr.  Prefident,  in  such  a  compliment  ? 
To  be  congratulated  on  one's  senility  !  To  be  congratulated  on 
having  reached  that  flage  of  life  when  the  bodily  and  mental 
powers  pass  into  decline  and  decay  !  Lear  is  made  by  Shakespeare 
to  say, 

"  Age  is  unneccessary  ; " 

and  a  later  poet,  Dr.  Johnson,  has  expressed  the  same  idea  in  one 
of  his  sonorous  lines : 

"  Superfluous  lags  the  veteran  on  the  ftage." 

You  have  not  forgotten,  Mr.  Prefident,  the  old  Greek  saying : 

"  Whom  the  gods  love  die  young," — 
2 


10 


nor  the  passage  in  Wordsworth  : 

"  Oh,  fir,  the  good  die  firft, 

And  they  whose  hearts  are  dry  as  summer  duft, 
Burn  to  the  socket." 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  wisdom  of  Old  Age.  Old  Age  is 
wise,  I  grant,  for  itself,  but  not  wise  for  the  community.  It  is 
wise  in  declining  new  enterprises,  for  it  has  not  the  power  nor  the 
time  to  execute  them  ;  wise  in  fhrinking  from  difficulty,  for  it  has 
not  the  ftrength  to  overcome  it ;  wise  in  avoiding  danger,  for  it 
lacks  the  faculty  of  ready  and  swift  action,  by  which  dangers  are 
parried  and  converted  into  advantages.  But  this  is  not  wisdom  for 
mankind  at  large,  by  whom  new  enterprises  muft  be  undertaken, 
dangers  met,  and  difficulties  surmounted.  What  a  world  would 
this  be  if  it  were  made  up  of  old  men  ! — generation  succeeding 
generation  of  hoary  ancients  who  had  but  a  dozen  years  or  perhaps 
half  that  time  to  live  !  What  new  work  of  good  would  be  at 
tempted  ?  what  exifting  abuse  or  evil  corrected  ?  What  ftrange 
subjects  would  such  a  world  afford  for  the  pencils  of  our  artifts — 
groups  of  superannuated  gray-beards  bafking  in  the  sun  through  the 
long  days  of  spring,  or  huddling  like  fheep  in  warm  corners  in  the 
winter  time  ;  houses  with  the  timbers  dropping  apart  ;  cities  in 
ruins  ;  roads  unwrought  and  impassable  ;  weedy  gardens  and  fields 
with  the  surface  feebly  scratched  to  put  in  a  scanty  harvest — 
decrepit  old  men  clambering  into  crazy  wagons,  perhaps  to  be  run 
away  with,  or  mounting  horse's,  if  they  mounted  them  at  all,  in 
terror  of  being  hurled  from  their  backs  like  a  fling  from  a  ftone. 
Well  it  is  that  in  this  world  of  ours  the  old  men  are  but  a  very 
small  minority. 


11 


Ah,  Mr.  Prefident,  if  we  could  but  ftop  this  rufhing  tide  of 
time  that  bears  us  so  swiftly  onward,  and  make  it  flow  towards  its 
source  ;  if  we  could  cause  the  fhadow  to  turn  back  on  the  dial- 
plate  !  I  see  before  me  many  excellent  friends  of  mine,  worthy 
to  live  a  thousand  years,  on  whose  countenances  years  have  set 
their  seal,  marking  them  with  the  lines  of  thought  and  care,  and 
caufing  their  temples  to  gliften  with  the  frofts  of  life's  autumn. 
If  to  any  one  of  them  could  be  reftored  his  glorious  prime,  his 
golden  youth,  with  its  hyacinthine  locks,  its  smooth,  unwrinkled 
brow,  its  frefh  and  rounded  cheek,  its  pearly  and  perfect  teeth,  its 
luftrous  eyes,  its  light  and  bounding  ftep,  its  frame  full  of  energy, 
its  exulting  spirits,  its  high  hopes,  its  generous  impulses,  and,  added 
to  all  these,  the  experience  and  fixed  principles  of  mature  age,  I  am 
sure,  Mr.  Prefident,  that  I  fhould  ftart  at  once  to  my  feet  and  pro 
pose  that  in  commemoration  of  such  a  marvel  and  by  way  of  con 
gratulating  our  friend  who  was  its  subject,  we  mould  hold  such  a 
feftivity  as  the  Century  has  never  seen  nor  will  ever  see  again. 
Eloquence  mould  bring  its  higheft  tribute,  and  Art  its  faireft 
decorations  to  grace  the  feftival  ;  the  moft  fkilful  muficians  mould 
be  here  with  all  manner  of  inftruments  of  mufic,  ancient  and 
modern  j  we  would  have  sackbut,  and  trumpet,  and  fhawm,  and 
damsels  with  dulcimers,  and  a  modern  band  three  times  as  large  as 
the  one  that  now  plays  on  that  balcony.  But  why  dwell  on  such 
a  vain  dream,  fince  it  is  only  by  pafling  through  the  darkness  that 
overhangs  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  that  man  can  reach 
his  second  youth  ? 

I  have  read,  in  descriptions  of  the  old  world,  of  the  families 
of  princes  and  barons  coming  out  of  their  caftles  to  be  present  at 
some  ruftic  feftivity,  such  as  a  wedding  of  one  of  their  peasantry. 


12 


I  am  reminded  of  this  cuftom  by  the  presence  of  many  literary 
persons  of  eminence  in  these  rooms,  and  I  thank  them  for  this  acl: 
of  benevolence.  Yet  I  miss  among  them  several  whom  I  had 
wifhed  rather  than  ventured  to  hope  that  I  fhould  meet  on  this 
occafion.  I  miss  my  old  friend  Dana,  who  gave  so  grandly  the 
ftory  of  the  Buccaneer  in  his  solemn  verses.  I  miss  Pierpont, 
venerable  in  years,  yet  vigorous  in  mind  and  body,  and  with  an 
undimmed  fancy  ;  and  him  whose  pages  are  wet  with  the  tears  of 
maidens  who  read  the  ftory  of  Evangeline  ;  and  the  author  of 
Fanny  and  the  Croakers,  no  less  renowned  for  the  fiery  spirit  which 
animated  his  Marco  Bozzaris  ;  and  him  to  whose  wit  we  owe  the 
Biglow  Papers,  who  has  made  a  lowly  flower  of  the  wayfide  as 
claffical  as  the  rose  of  Anacreon  ;  and  the  Quaker  poet,  whose 
verses,  Quaker  as  he  is,  ftir  the  blood  like  the  voice  of  a  trumpet 
calling  to  battle  ;  and  the  poetess  of  Hartford,  whose  beautiful 
lyrics  are  in  a  million  hands,  and  others,  whose  names,  were  they 
to  occur  to  me  here  as  in  my  ftudy,  I  might  accompany  with  the 
mention  of  some  characteriftic  merit.  But  here  is  he  whose  aerial 
verse  has  raised  the  little  insect  of  our  fields  making  his  murmur 
ing  journey  from  flower  to  flower,  the  humble-bee,  to  a  dignity 
equal  to  that  of  Pindar's  eagle  ;  here  is  the  Autocrat  of  the  Break- 
faft  Table — author  of  that  moft  spirited  of  naval  lyrics,  beginning 
with  the  line  : 

"Aye,  tear  her  tattered  enfign  down! " 

here,  too,  is  the  poet  who  told  in  pathetic  verse  the  ftory  of 
Jeptha's  daughter,  and  here  are  others,  worthy  compeers  of  those 
I  have  mentioned,  yet  greatly  my  juniors,  in  the  brightness  of 
whose  rifing  fame  I  am  like  one  who  has  carried  a  lantern  in  the 


'3 


night,  and  who  perceives  that  its  beams  are  no  longer  visible  in 
the  glory  which  the  morning  pours  around  him.  To  them  and  to 
all  the  members  of  the  Century,  allow  me,  Mr.  Prefident,  to  offer 
the  wifh  that  they  may  live  longer  than  I  have  done,  in  health  of 
body  and  mind,  and  in  the  same  contentment  and  serenity  of  spirit 
which  has  fallen  to  my  lot.  I  muft  not  overlook  the  ladies  who 
have  deigned  to  honor  these  rooms  with  their  presence.  If  I  knew 
where,  amid  myrtle  bowers  and  flowers  that  never  wither,  gufhed 
from  the  ground  the  Fountain  of  Perpetual  Youth  so  long  vainly 
sought  by  the  firft  Spanifh  adventurers  on  the  North  American 
continent,  I  would  offer  to  the  lips  of  every  one  of  them  a  beaker 
of  its  frefh  and  sparkling  waters,  and  bid  them  drink  unfading 
bloom.  But  fince  that  is  not  to  be,  I  will  wifh  what,  perhaps,  is 
as  well,  and  what  some  would  think  better,  that  the  same  kindness 
of  heart  which  has  prompted  them  to  come  hither  to-night,  may 
lend  a  beauty  to  every  action  of  their  future  lives.  And  to  "  the 
Century"  itself — the  dear  old  Century — to  whose  members  I  owe 
both  the  honors  and  the  embarrassments  of  this  occafion — to  that 
association,  fortunate  in  having  possessed  two  such  prefidents  as 
the  diftinguiftied  hiftorian,  who  now  occupies  the  chair,  and  the 
eminent  and  accomplifhed  scholar  and  admirable  writer  who  pre 
ceded  him,  I  offer  the  wifh  that  it  may  endure,  not  only  for  the 
term  of  years  fignified  by  its  name — not  for  one  century  only,  but 
for  ten  centuries — so  that  hereafter,  perhaps,  its  members  may 
discuss  the  queftion  whether  its  name  fhould  not  be  changed  to 
that  of  the  Club  of  a  Thousand  Years,  and  that  these  may  be 
centuries  of  peace  and  prosperity,  from  which  its  members  may 
look  back  to  this  period  of  bloody  ftrife,  as  to  a  frightful  dream 
soon  chased  away  by  the  beams  of  a  glorious  morning. 


H 

No  sooner  had  the  applause  which  attended  and  followed 
Mr.  Bryant's  remarks  subfided,  than  chorifters  in  the  balcony 
(truck  up  a  chant  for  his  birthday,  by  BAYARD  TAYLOR  : 

i. 

One  hour  be  filent,  sounds  of  war  ! 

Delay  the  battle  he  foretold, 
And  let  the  bard's  triumphant  ftar 

Pour  down  from  Heaven  its  mildeft  gold. 

n. 

Let  Fame,  that  plucks  but  laurel  now 

For  loyal  heroes,  turn  away, 
And  twine,  to  crown  her  poet's  brow, 

The  greener  garland  of  the  bay. 

m. 

For  he,  our  earlieft  minftrel,  fills 

The  land  with  echoes,  sweet  and  long, 

Gives  language  to  her  filent  hills, 
And  bids  her  rivers  move  to  song. 

IV. 

The  Phosphor  of  the  Nation's  dawn, 

Sole-risen  above  our  tuneless  coaft, 
As  Hesper,  now,  his  lamp  burns  on — 

The  leader  of  the  ftarry  hoft. 


V. 

He  fings  of  mountains  and  of  ftreams, 

Of  ftoried  field  and  haunted  dale, 
Yet  hears  a  voice  through  all  his  dreams, 

Which  says,  "The  Good  ihall  yet  prevail." 

VI. 

He  fings  of  Truth,  he  fings  of  Right ; 

He  fings  of  Freedom,  and  his  ftrains 
March  with  our  armies  to  the  fight, 

Ring  in  the  bondman's  falling  chains. 
/ 

VII. 

God,  bid  him  live,  till  in  her  place 

Truth,  crufhed  to  earth,  again  fhall  rise — 

The  "  mother  of  a  mighty  race," 
Fulfil  her  poet's  prophecies. 

The  moft  venerable  of  American  poets  would  have  next 
been  looked  to ;  his  absence  was  explained  by 


GENTLEMEN  : 

I  was  much  gratified  upon  seeing  in  the  papers  that  "The 
Century  "  would  keep  the  day  on  which  my  old  friend  Mr.  Bryant 
is  to  take  his  place  among  the  septuagenarians :  may  he  live  to  be 
numbered  with  the  next  "upper  ten."  I  am  sorry,  that,  being 
within  a  very  few  years  of  the  latter  class,  and  feeling  the  touch 


i6 


of  infirmities,  it  will  be  out  of  my  power  to  take  advantage  of  the 
invitation  so  kindly  extended  to  me.  It  is  good  for  us  to  give 
honour  where  it  is  due ;  and  it  would  be  cheering  to  me  to  pay  it 
to  one  who  has  done  so  much  to  throw  beauty  over  our  common 
life.  As  it  is,  I  muft  be  content  at  home  with  setting  apart  the 
time  of  your  meeting  together  to  thinking  upon  what  you  are  all 
enjoying,  and  to  going  over  by  myself  the  many  years  to  which 
our  friend  has  added  so  much  to  gladden  a  protracted  life. 

The  letter  having  been  read,  the  Prefident  introduced  a 
representative  of  New  England  : 

MR.    RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON'S    REMARKS. 

MR.  PRESIDENT: 

Whilft  I  am  grateful  to  you  and  to  "The  Century"  for 
the  privilege  of  joining  you  in  this  graceful  and  moft  deserved 
homage  to  our  poet,  I  am  a  little  disconcerted,  in  the  absence  of 
some  expected  friends  from  the  Bay  State,  at  finding  myself  put 
forward  to  speak  on  their  part.  Let  me  say  for  them  that  we  have 
a  property  in  his  genius  and  virtue.  Whilft  we  delight  in  your 
love  of  him,  and  in  his  power  and  reputation  in  your  imperial  State, 
we  can  never  forget  that  he  was  born  on  the  soil  of  Massachusetts. 
Your  great  metropolis  is  always,  by  some  immense  attraction  of 
gravity,  drawing  to  itself  our  beft  men.  But  we  forgive  you  in 
this  case  the  robbery,  when  we  see  how  nobly  you  have  used  him. 
Moreover,  the  joint  posseflion  by  New  York  and  Massachusetts 
of  him,  and  of  others  in  this  great  circle  of  his  friends,  is  one  of 


17 

those  ethereal  hoops  which  bind  these  States  inseparably  in  these 
perilous  times. 

I  join  with  all  my  heart  in  your  wifh  to  honour  this  native,  fin- 
cere,  original,  patriotic  poet.  I  say  original  :  I  have  heard  him 
charged  with  being  of  a  certain  school.  I  heard  it  with  surprise, 
and  afked,  what  school  ?  for  he  never  reminded  me  of  Goldsmith, 
or  Wordsworth,  or  Byron,  or  Moore.  I  found  him  always  origi 
nal,  a  true  painter  of  the  face  of  this  country,  and  of  the  sentiment 
of  his  own  people.  When  I  read  the  verses  of  popular  American 
and  Englifh  poets,  I  often  think  that  they  appear  to  have  gone  into 
the  Art  Galleries  and  to  have  seen  pictures  of  mountains,  but  this 
man  to  have  seen  mountains.  With  his  flout  ftaff  he  has  climbed 
Greylock  and  the  White  Hills,  and  sung  what  he  saw.  He 
renders  Berkmire  to  me  in  verse,  with  the  sober  coloring,  too,  to 
which  nature  cleaves,  only  now  and  then  permitting  herself  the 
scarlet  and  gold  of  the  prism.  It  is  his  proper  praise,  that  he  firft 
and  he  only  made  known  to  mankind  our  northern  landscape — its 
summer  splendor,  its  autumn  russet,  its  winter  lights  and  glooms. 
And  he  is  original  because  he  is  fincere.  Many  young  men  write 
verse  which  ftrikes  by  talent,  but  the  writer  has  not  committed 
himself,  the  man  is  not  there,  it  is  written  at  arm's  length,  he  could 
as  well  have  written  on  any  other  theme :  it  was  not  neceflitated 
and  autobiographic,  and  therefore  it  does  not  imprint  itself  on  the 
memory,  and  return  for  thought  and  consolation  in  our  solitary 
hours.  But  our  friend's  inspiration  is  from  the  inmoft  mind ;  he 
has  not  a  labial  but  a  cheft  voice,  and  you  mail  detecl:  the  taftes 
and  experiences  of  the  poem  in  his  daily  life. 

Like  other  poets — more  than  other  poets — with  his  expanding 
genius  his  ambition  grew.  Fountain-heads  and  pathless  groves  did 
3 


i8 


not  content  him.  It  is  a  national  fin.  There  is,  you  know,  an 
optical  diftemper  endemic  in  the  City  of  Washington,  contracted 
by  Senators  and  others  who  once  look  at  the  Prefident's  chair; 
their  eyes  grow  to  it  ;  they  can  never  again  take  their  eyes  off  it. 
The  virus  once  in  is  not  to  be  got  out  of  the  syftem.  Our  friend 
had  not  this  malady,  but  has  symptoms  of  another, 

"That  laft  infirmity  of  noble  minds." 

Ah,  gentlemen  !  so  cold  and  majeftic  as  he  fits  here,  I  fear 
this  fin  burned  at  his  heart — well  hid,  I  own  ;  never  was  man 
more  modeft,  less  boaftful,  less  egotiftical.  But  you  remember 
that  wicked  Phidias,  who,  after  making  his  divine  Minerva,  carved 
his  own  image  with  such  deep  incifion  into  the  shield,  that  it  could 
not  be  effaced  without  destroying  the  statue.  But  this  artist  of 
ours,  with  deeper  cunning,  has  contrived  to  levy  on  all  American 
nature,  has  subfidized  every  solitary  grove  and  monument-mountain 
in  Berkshire  or  the  Katskills,  every  gleaming  water,  the  "  gardens 
of  the  Desert,"  every  waterfowl  and  woodbird,  the  evening  wind, 
the  stormy  March,  the  song  of  the  stars  ; — has  suborned  every  one 
of  these  to  speak  for  him,  so  that  there  is  no  feature  of  day  or 
night  in  the  country  which  does  not,  to  a  contemplative  mind, 
recall  the  name  of  Bryant.  This  high-handed  usurpation  of  what 
ever  is  sweet  or  sublime,  I  charge  him  with,  and,  on  the  top  of 
this,  with  the  sorcery  of  making  us  hug  our  fetters  and  rejoice  in 
our  subjugation. 

Then,  fir,  for  his  patriotism — we  all  know  the  deep  debt  which 
the  country  owes  to  the  accomplished  journalist,  who,  the  better  to 
carry  the  ends  which  his  heart  defired,  left  the  studies  and  retire 
ments  dear  to  his  muse,  adapted  his  voice  to  the  masses  to  be 


reached,  and  the  great  cause  to  be  sustained — was  content  to  drop 
"the  garland  and  finging-robes  of  the  poet,"  and,  mafking  his 
Tyrtaean  elegies  in  the  plain  speech  of  the  street,  sounded  the 
key-note  of  policy  and  public  duty  to  the  American  people,  in  a 
manner  and  with  an  effecl:  of  the  highest  service  to  the  Republic. 

Before  I  fit  down,  let  me  apply  to  him  a  verse  addressed  by 
Thomas  Moore  to  the  poet  Crabbe,  and  Moore  has  written  few 
better  : 

"  True  bard,  and  fimple  as  the  race 

Of  heaven-born  poets  always  are, 
When  ftooping  from  their  ftarry  place, 
They're  children  near,  but  gods  afar." 

The  audience  liftened  with  hearty  approval  to  the  gener 
ous  tribute  from  one  man  of  genius  to  another.  From  all 
parts  of  the  country  representatives  were  present.  The  plat 
form  was  next  taken  by  a  representative  of  Pennsylvania, 
who  did  but  embody  the  sentiments  and  wiflies  of  all  around 
him. 

BRYANT. 

November  $th,  1864. 

BY      GEORGE      H.      BOKER. 

With  timid  steps,  as  one  who  enters  in 
A  solemn  temple  from  the  city's  din, 
And  hears  behind  the  mighty  portals  close 
Upon  the  world's  long  chase  of  joys  and  woes ; 


20 


And  half  forgets  his  mission,  through  intense 

Awe  at  the  chancel's  calm  magnificence  : 

So  I,  a  stranger  with  a  recent  name — 

More  on  the  people's  than  the  lips  of  fame — 

In  this  august  assemblage  faltering  stand, 

And  doubt  the  right  I  use  by  your  command. 

Behold  the  temple  that  around  me  lies, 

A  growth  of  earth,  but  swelling  to  the  fkies  ; 

Raised  in  a  night,  that  he  who  fills  the  shrine, 

Founder  and  glory  of  our  tuneful  line, 

May  hold  the  state  his  genius  owns  by  right, 

And  claim  our  homage  in  the  nation's  sight. 

What  prouder  pile  was  ever  built  by  hands 

Than  that  which  fancy,  as  her  eye  expands, 

Shapes  from  this  mass  of  noble  forms  and  minds, 

Builds  as  she  broods,  and  in  one  structure  binds  ? 

I  see  before  me,  clustered  fide  by  fide, 

The  stateliest  columns  of  my  country's  pride, — 

Poets,  historians,  and  those  whose  art 

Makes  fiction  truth,  and  gives  to  shadows  heart. 

A  storied  frieze  their  laureled  brows  uphold, 

Enriched  with  legends  grand  and  manifold  ; 

Or  glowing  with  that  quiet  hearth-fide  light 

Which  makes  the  homeliest  face  beloved  and  bright, 

To  right  and  left,  wide  chapels  flash  their  store 

Of  painted  wonders  from  the  walls,  and  pour 

A  flood  of  glory  on  each  hand  that  wrought 

Its  new  creation  from  exhaustless  thought. 

Here  rest  the  sculptured  shapes  that  never  know 


21 


A  mortal  touch  to  paffion's  ebb  or  flow. 

Calm  in  their  deathless  grace  and  changeless  mood, 

They  front  their  fate  with  godlike  fortitude, 

Or  breathe  their  love  in  ever-listening  ears, 

Or  drop  HI  sorrow  their  eternal  tears  ; 

Kneel  at  a  tomb  whence  human  grief  has  fled, 

And  pray  to  Heaven  for  man's  forgotten  dead. 

Shall  I,  half  trembling  at  the  thing  I  do, 

Speak  of  the  windows,  whence  the  light  shines  through 

Upon  this  world  of  art  ?     O  critics  keen, 

Your  lucid  minds  give  splendor  to  the  scene  ; 

You  are  the  medium  of  the  heavenly  rays  ; 

Groups,  pictures,  poems  kindle  in  your  blaze. 

Without  your  aid  we  see  no  art  aright ; 

But  is't  not  sometimes  party-coloured  light 

That  flames  upon  us  from  your  tinted  panes, 

And  haply  glorifies,  or  haply  stains  ? 

I  shall  not  afk.     The  marvel  of  the  roof, 

That  crowns  this  temple  draws  my  eyes  aloof. 

Wide  as  God's  azure  vault  it  spreads  above, 

A  perfect  dome  of  man's  triumphant  love ; 

And  all  the  vastness  of  its  cloudless  cope 

Burns  with  the  stars  of  memory  and  of  hope. 

Such  is  your  temple,  Bryant  !     Do  I  strain 

The  figure  farther  than  the  fa£ts  sustain  ? 

Look  on  the  neighbouring  groups,  ye  doubting  few, 

And  own  yourselves  convicted  at  the  view. 

To  me  the  fight  of  those  assembled  here 

Will  be  a  wonder  till  my  latest  year. 


22 


My  memory  holds  no  picture  in  its  round 

So  pure  in  aim,  in  justice  so  profound, 

So  free  from  any  paflion  that  might  taint 

The  holiest  scene  man's  cunning  art  could  paint ; 

Nor  can  I  hope,  outliving  Nestor's  years, 

To  see  again  these  intellectual  peers 

Marshal  their  ranks,  to  honour  any  chief 

With  joy's  acclaims,  or  with  the  tears  of  grief. 

'T  were  vain  in  me  to  ape  great  Homer's  plan, 

And  give  his  title  to  each  noted  man. 

Why  should  I  echo  an  illustrious  name, 

Already  sounding  from  the  lips  of  Fame  ? 

Or  like  a  wren,  my  twittering  notes  prolong 

Amidst  these  fky-larks  of  our  native  song  ? 

Thus  much  however ;  what  the  wren  may  owe 

The  morning's  laureate,  I  am  proud  to  show. 

Great  Master  of  my  Country's  earnest  lyre, 

What  heart  so  humble  that  cannot  aspire 

With  grateful  pride,  to  feel  itself  the  while 

Blessed  by  the  bounty  of  your  generous  smile  ? 

To  know,  though  vexed  with  doubts  and  crossed  with  fears, 

That  from  the  audience  Bryant  bends  and  hears ; 

And  in  the  largess  of  his  patient  heart, 

Takes  the  intention  as  the  deed's  best  part  ? 

Why  should  I  tremble,  holding  by  the  hand 

That  led  my  youth  across  his  wondrous  land  ? 

Through  every  feeling  that  can  move  the  mind, 

Through  noisy  joy,  through  sorrow  dumb  and  blind, 

Through  the  cool  ways  of  philosophic  thought, 


23 


Over  the  fields  where  bloody  frays  were  fought, 

Into  the  filence  of  the  forest  nook, 

Down  the  green  pathway  of  the  primrose  brook, 

By  God's  own  gardens  in  the  meadows  sown, 

Around  the  prairie's  fky-encompassed  zone, 

Across  the  fiery  steps  of  dying  day, 

Where  the  lone  wild-fowl  winged  his  fearless  way, 

Up  to  the  peaks  that  bury  in  the  sun 

Their  golden  foreheads,  where  the  bright  stars  run 

Their  filver  circle  round  the  frozen  pole, 

And  through  the  mysteries  of  man's  solemn  soul, 

O  Bryant,  partner  of  my  path  and  guide, 

We  two  have  journeyed  onward  fide  by  fide. 

Yours  was  the  realm.     At  your  imperial  look 

The  dew-drop  glittered  and  the  gentian  shook, 

The  circling  swallow  dipped  his  restless  wings, 

The  feathered  conclave  perched  in  filent  rings, 

The  furry  beast  came  purring  to  your  feet, 

All  Nature  bowed  before  your  sovereign  seat. 

Crowned  with  the  laurel,  sceptred  with  the  lyre, 

Sage  with  the  secrets  of  its  magic  wire  ; 

Wearing  the  purple  by  a  right  divine, 

That  shamed  the  claimants  of  the  haughtiest  line  ; 

Amongst  the  votaries  of  your  throne  I  stood 

With  regal  longings  stirring  in  my  blood. 

Blame  not  a  boy,  if  I  essayed  ere  long 

To  catch  the  key-note  of  your  matchless  song. 

Failed  at  the  first,  as  at  this  latest  hour, 

But,  failing,  learned  the  mystery  of  your  power. 


Hearken,  ye  bards  who  err  by  rigid  rules, 

And  wear  the  tawdry  livery  of  the  schools  ; 

Who  strive  to  shine  as  other  lights  have  shone, 

And  envying  others,  forfeit  what's  your  own  ! 

Write,  as  he  wrote,  with  honest,  fimple  pains, 

Out  of  the  seeds  God  planted  in  your  brains, 

Out  of  the  fulness  of  your  nation's  heart, 

Nor  vex  the  dead  with  imitative  art ; 

Nor  cross  the  natural  limit  of  the  seas, 

To  seek  a  strength  that  fills  our  stronger  breeze. 

For  were  the  copy  as  the  first  mould  cast, — 

Out  on  the  thing  !  a  copy  'tis  at  last ! 

By  mere  descent  no  poet  shall  be  known  ; 

Each  royal  minstrel  holds  his  separate  throne, 

And  o'er  his  state  a  seraph's  brand  is  whirled  : 

One  Milton  is  enough  for  any  world. 

Poet  revered,  you  taught  this  lesson  first, 

As  from  the  bondage  of  the  schools  you  burst, 

And  filled  our  startled  but  delighted  sense 

With  our  wide  land's  discovered  affluence  ; 

Gave  the  scorned  legends  of  our  narrow  past 

Another  colour  and  more  graceful  cast ; 

Touched  the  wild  flowers  beneath  our  lucid  fkies, 

And  shook  their  glimmer  in  the  dreamer's  eyes  ; 

Made  history  light  upon  unstoried  hills, 

And  breathed  a  voice  along  our  savage  rills  ; 

Spread  over  all  the  haze  of  fresh  romance, 

Till  Europe  wondered  through  her  doubting  glance ; 

But  wondered  more  that  every  tone  rang  out 


The  clarion  challenge  of  a  freeman's  shout ; 

Sounding  defiance  to  their  castes  and  kings, 

Their  courtly  follies  over  empty  things  ; 

But,  O  my  Bryant,  tempered  sweet  and  low, 

To  tenderest  pity,  was  your  mufic's  flow 

Over  the  trampled  serfs  that  raised  their  groans 

Beneath  the  shadows  of  resplendent  thrones. 

Warm  was  the  welcome  of  the  hand  you  gave 

Across  our  threshold  to  the  fleeing  flave  ; 

And  stern  the  courage  of  your  angry  frown, 

When  tyrants  raged  for  what  they  called  their  own. 

You  were  the  first  who  made  us  clearly  see, 

In  rhythmic  words,  how  grand  'tis  to  be  free  ; 

Sang  to  the  world  the  spirit  of  our  land, 

And  waved  her  standard  from  your  spotless  hand  ; 

Taught  every  child  the  glory  of  his  birth, 

And  spread  his  heritage  around  the  earth  ; 

Made  youth  feel  stronger,  that  his  life  began 

Here  in  the  front  of  freedom's  hardy  van  ; 

Consoled  the  sage  against  foreboding  fears, 

And  starred  with  hopes  the  shadows  of  his  years. 

Two  lives  the  poet  lives,  'tis  said.     In  you 

Both  gently  mingle  in  a  man  so  true 

To  the  pure  instincts  of  his  sacred  gift, 

That  (lander's  self  can  point  no  adverse  drift. 

Whether  the  subtle  rhetoric  of  your  pen 

In  prose  or  verse  address  itself  to  men, 

Or  the  convincing  logic  of  your  tongue, 

With  which  the  rostrums  of  the  State  have  rung, 

4 


26 


Be  raised  in  counsel  ;  who  will  dare  to  say 

They  passed  truth's  landmarks  for  a  novel  way  ; 

Or  ranged  themselves,  in  peace  or  open  fight, 

On  any  fide  but  on  the  fide  of  right  ? 

So  well  the  man  becomes  the  poet's  crown, 

That  each  gives  each  a  measure  of  renown ; 

Imbue  each  other,  form  a  perfect  whole, 

And  top  our  race  with  one  exalted  soul. 

Let  me  no  longer  try  the  public  ear 

With  what  men  knew  before  they  entered  here ; 

Or  mar  your  title  with  my  tedious  lines, 

And  breathe  a  mist  upon  a  thing  that  shines. 

We  hail  you,  poet,  with  our  greeting  shout ; 

From  this  thronged  hall  the  cry  goes  rolling  out 

Above  the  city,  that  takes  up  the  sound, 

And  spreads  the  welcome  to  the  country  round. 

Each  fruitful  valley  and  each  echoing  hill, 

That  feel  the  touch  of  your  fame-giving  will, 

Wake  as  the  tones  flide  down  the  happy  gales, 

To  wave  our  flag,  or  fill  our  swelling  sails. 

The  dew-beads  twinkle,  and  the  wild-flowers  nod  ; 

The  robins  carol  from  the  tawny  sod ; 

The  flave  turns  lightly  in  his  galling  chain, 

Prays  low,  then  dreams  of  liberty  again. 

Nature  and  man  repeat  the  mystic  thrill, 

That  proved  the  power  of  the  magician's  fkill, 

When,  as  a  youth,  you  struck  your  country's  lyre, 

And  filled  its  pauses  with  your  spirit's  fire. 

Long  may  the  years  that  hear  your  powerful  rhyme, 


27 

Stretch  out  your  life  along  the  coming  time  I 

We  hear  no  discord,  nothing  of  decay 

In  the  fresh  mufic  of  your  latest  lay. 

Youth  nerves  the  poet  ;  why  may  not  the  man 

Leave  far  behind  the  Psalmist's  fated  span ; 

Like  a  pure  tone,  his  purer  life  prolong, 

Live  with  the  life  of  his  immortal  song  ? 

God  grant  it,  Bryant  !     I  have  not  a  prayer 

That  would  not  clamber  up  the  heavenly  air, 

To  kneel  before  the  splendor  of  the  Throne, 

If  thus  another  blefling  could  be  sown 

In  the  fair  garden  of  your  blooming  days, 

Already  fragrant  with  a  nation's  praise, 

Bright  with  the  wreaths  the  total  world  hath  given, 

And  warm  with  love  that's  sanctified  by  Heaven. 

The  great  Weft  sent  an  honored  artift  and  poet,  who 
travelled  eight  hundred  miles  by  night  and  day,  to  appear  in 
its  behalf;  and  these  are  the  ftanzas  in  which  he  expressed 
the  spirit  of  those  from  whom  he  came  : 

TO   BRYANT. 

BY    THOMAS    BUCHANAN    READ. 

What  time  I  ope,  with  reverential  love, 

One  of  the  charmed  volumes  of  my  choice, 

I  hear,  as  in  the  cloisters  of  the  grove, 
The  solemn  mufic  of  thy  Druid  voice. 


28 


All  fights  and  sounds  that  can  delight  impart, 
Or  whatsoe'er  athwart  thy  vifion  swims, 

Before  the  altar  of  the  world's  great  heart, 
Thou  nobly  breathest  in  undying  hymns. 

For  thy  broad  love  there  is  no  flower  too  small, 
Nor  scene  too  vast  for  thy  encircling  mind ; 

Thy  heart  is  one  with  Nature's,  yet  o'er  all 
Rises  its  sweet  vibration  for  mankind. 

The  faintest  breath  that  finds  a  flowery  nook, 
The  flying  winds  with  wise  and  gust-like  locks, 

The  pebble  which  the  lapidary  brook 

Rounds  into  form — or  ocean-scorning  rocks  ; 

The  burnished  blue-bird,  with  his  spring-time  song, 
The  azure-winged  runnel's  April  call  ; 

The  timid  wren,  the  falcon  fierce  and  strong, 
The  soaring  water-fowl,  the  swooping  fall ; 

The  glow-worm's  lantern  and  the  lunar  car, 
The  midnight  taper  and  the  noonday  sun, 

The  pool  where  swims  the  lily  like  a  star, 
The  boundless  sea,  with  lily  sails  o'errun  ; 

The  brooklet  blade  the  lightest  wavelet  moves, 
Where  childhood's  paper  sails  are  set  unfurled, 

The  antique  home  of  shade,  the  oaken  groves, 
Growing  the  ponderous  navies  of  the  world ; 


29 


The  peaceful  hearthstone  and  the  roaring  field, 
The  song-bird  and  our  eagle  on  his  crag, 

The  love  of  all  that  quiet  home  can  yield, 
The  love  of  country,  freedom,  and  her  flag ; 

All  these  are  thine,  thou  pioneer  of  song, 

Bard  of  the  prairie  and  primeval  grove, 
And  unto  thee  our  praise  may  well  belong — 

Yea,  more  than  praise — the  homage  of  our  love. 

And  this  is  thine,  and  therefore  I  obey, 
And  bow  before  thy  Druid  locks  of  snow, 

And  on  thy  sacred  altar  here  I  lay 

My  votive  branch  of  western  misletoe. 

From  the  Britifti  Provinces  there  was  received  an  assur 
ance  that  the  Saint  Lawrence  cannot  set  bounds  to  the 
friendly  recognition  of  merit. 

EXTRACT    OF    A    GREETING     FROM    CANADA    TO    WILLIAM    CULLEN 
BRYANT    ON    HIS    yOTH    BIRTHDAY. 

All  honor  to  the  lyric  few 

Of  every  land  and  nation, 
The  tuneful  throng  whose  souls  of  song 

Are  deeps  of  inspiration. 
O  !  sad  old  world,  where  were  thy  boast 

Unless  these  struck  the  lyre  ! 


Thou  had'st  no  mental  Pentecost 

But  for  their  tongues  of  fire. 
The  sacred  oracles  of  God 

Each  heaven-transmitted  token, 
The  inspired  word  in  vifions  heard, 

Through  poet-souls  were  spoken. 
All  honor,  then,  ye  men  of  men, 

In  Bardic  love  assembled, 
Whose  truths  have  flown  from  zone  to  zone, 

While  error  paused  and  trembled. 
Columbia's  boast !  her  lark-like  host, 

In  lyric  strength  reliant, 
Their  carcanet  of  lays  would  set 

Around  the  name  of  Bryant. 
And  well  they  may  ;  each  loving  lay, 

Thrice-earned,  is  his  in  duty ; 
For  who  so  well  hath  tuned  the  shell 

To  nature's  worth  and  beauty  ! 
His  burning  lyre,  his  heart  on  fire 

With  paflion  true  and  fervent  ; 
A  soul  to  feel  for  woe  or  weal ! 

Truth's  champion,  priest,  and  servant. 
To  sterling  worth  their  hearts  go  forth, 

Vicing  with  one  another  ; 
With  eager  feet  they  come  to  greet 

Their  patriarchal  brother. 
No  rival  stands  with  folded  hands, 

But  with  one  voice  compliant, 


The  gifted  throng,  each  heir  of  song, 

Rings  out  the  fame  of  Bryant. 
Here  e'en  as  there,  our  hearts  can  share 

The  greetings  flung  before  him  ; 
In  love  to-day  we're  rich  as  they 

Who  shed  their  halos  o'er  him. 

CHARLES  SANGSTER. 

KINGSTON,  CANADA  WEST. 


It  had  been  hoped  that  the  great  people  from  whom  we 
inherit  the  beft  language  ever  used  by  man,  fince  that  of 
Homer  and  Plato  died  away,  would  have  been  represented 
at  the  feftival  by  one  who  has  a  fingular  command  of  that 
language  in  its  richness,  delicacy,  and  ftrength.  The  Prefi- 
dent  could  only  produce  an 

EXTRACT    OF    A    LETTER    FROM    MR.    GOLDWIN    SMITH. 

"  I  am  fincerely  sorry  to  miss  the  opportunity  of  taking  part  in 
any  tribute  of  respect  to  Mr.  Bryant.  I  beg  you  will  assure  him 
of  this,  and  wish  him  joy,  in  my  name,  of  the  public  gratitude 
which  crowns  his  bright  and  honorable  career." 

The  admirers  of  the  bed  poetry  are  not  confined  to  men. 
Offerings,  voluntary,  or  in  response  to  invitations,  were  re 
ceived  from  the  other  sex. 


32 


EXTRACT  FROM  MISS  C.  M.  SEDGWICK  S    LETTER  TO  W.  J.  HOPPIN. 

"  WOODBOURNE  (near  Bofton),  October  $isty  1864. 

"  It  is  one  of  the  severest  of  my  privations  that  ill-health  com 
pels  me  to  decline  the  very  gratifying  invitation  from  the  Century. 
No  one  could  participate  more  earnestly  than  myself  in  an  honor 
rendered  to  my  friend  Mr.  Bryant,  to  whose  genius  my  heart  has 
given  homage  from  its  first  budding  to  the  ripening  of  its  fruits  in 
their  present  sweetness  and  immortal  perfection.  To  this  homage 
is  added  the  reverence  due  to  his  character,  and  to  the  patriotic 
service  he  has  done  for  his  country  in  keeping  the  fire  brightly 
burning  in  his  watch-tower  through  all  its  weal  and  woe.  I  am 
happy  in  believing  that  some  of*  the  members  of  '  The  Century ' 
will  be  glad  to  know  that  they  have  enriched  me  with  pleasant 
memories  which,  in  some  sort,  console  me  for  my  enforced  absence 
from  the  coming  celebration.  There  are  lights  and  consolations 
for  the  dimmed  hours  never  perceived  or  known  till  they  come. 

"  Believe  me,  my  dear  Mr.  Hoppin,  gratefully  yours, 

"  C.  M.  SEDGWICK." 


To  WILLIAM   CULLEN  BRYANT, 

With  a  blossom  of  EDELWEISS,  from  the  Swiss  Alps,  eleven  thousand 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 

BY  MARY    H.  C.  BOOTH,  OF    WISCONSIN. 

Not  from  the  cultured  gardens, 
And  not  from  the  daified  sod, 


33 


Do  I  bring  my  little  offering, 

But  down  from  the  hills  of  God. 

Down  from  the  crystal  mountains, 
Where  never  a  flower  was  sown, 

Save  the  flower  that  God  has  planted, 
In  fight  of  the  Great  White  Throne. 

From  over  the  nests  of  the  eagles 

And  under  the  Angels'  feet, 
Where  the  opal  airs  of  summer 

And  the  winds  of  winter  meet, 
A  flower  I  bring,  an  offering 

From  the  snow  hill's  filver  crest. 
And  leave  sweet  songs  and  silver  crowns 

And  earth  flowers  for  the  rest. 

The  Alpine  hunters  tell  us 

That,  when  a  Poet  dies, 
God  meets  him  at  the  Golden  Gate 

Crowned  with  the  Edelweiss; 
But  only  those  who  worshipped  Him 

In  finging  nature's  praise, 
And  walked  befide  Him  on  the  hills 

And  through  Life's  lonely  ways. 

Oh  King  of  nature's  songsters  ! 

And  thus  I  bring  to  thee 
This  blossom,  from  the  Alpine  hills, 

The  glorious  and  free, 
5 


34 

That,  when  the  Angels  bid  thee  pause 

Where  oft  thy  soul  hath  trod, 
To  crown  thee  on  the  mountain  tops, 

Upon  thy  way  to  God — 

Thou  then  may'st  recognise  the  flower 

As  one,  while  yet  below 
And  walking  in  the  earthly  ways, 

Thou  yet  had'st  learned  to  know. 
Thus,  from  no  cultured  garden, 

And  not  from  the  daified  sod, 
Do  I  bring  my  little  offering. 

But  down  from  the  hills  of  God. 

NOVEMBER  5th,  1864. 

A  beautiful  wreath  composed  of  natural  flowers,  white 
lilies,  amaranths,  and  red  roses,  intermixed  with  myrtle  and 
bay,  was  sent  to  Mr.  Bryant  by  an  unknown  lady,  with  a 
copy  of  verses  in  his  honor,  which  (lie  described  as 

"  Simple  blossoms  of  the  soul 
Budding  forth  without  control." 

Mrs.  Sigourney  reluftantly  refigned  the  "  opportunity  of 
paying  respeft  to  one  whose  high  and  pure  poetical  genius 
has  rendered  his  name  illuftrious  in  our  country  and  the 
world ;  "  and  contributed  the  following  ftanzas : 


35 


THE    SEVENTIETH    BIRTHDAY    OF   WILLIAM 
CULLEN    BRYANT. 

BY    L.    HUNTLEY    SIGOURNEY. 

Honor  to  him,  the  loved  of  all, 

The  matter  of  our  Weftern  lyre  ! 
Who  o'er  his  country's  heart  hath  thrown 

The  melody  with  which  his  own 
Hath  ever  dwelt,  fhaping  its  tone, 
To  heavenly  choir. 

Honor  to  him  whose  early  years 

The  old  Homeric  fire  displayed, 
And  now  to  Wisdom's  ripened  truth 

Hath  brought  the  sunbeams  of  his  youth, 
Without  a  (hade. 

All  hail  to  him,  whose  genial  ftrain 

Nor  bitterness  nor  satire  knew, 
But  from  the  charms  of  Nature's  face 

And  virtue's  dignity  and  grace 
Its  impulse  drew. 

All  hail  !  and  ftill  through  lengthened  days 
May  his  pure  thoughts  unsullied  flow, 

And  in  the  alembic  of  the  mind, 
Mingling  like  molten  gold  refined, 

Through  future  ages  on  mankind 
Their  wealth  beftow. 

HARTFORD,  CONN.,  1864. 


36 

The  assembly  was  becoming  impatient  to  hear  the  voice 
of  a  gifted  woman,  a  native  of  New  York  City,  who  was 
present.  The  Prefident,  following  their  intimation,  led  her 
to  the  platform,  where  flie  recited  a  poem. 

A   LEAF    FROM    THE    BRYANT    CHAPLET. 

BY    JULIA    WARD    HOWE. 

Friends  who  greet  the  crowned  Poet,  who  detain  the  pafllng  year 
With  the  love  that  knows  no  pafling,  I  attend  your  summons  here. 
Had  ye  suffered  me  in  filence,  I  had  thanked  your  courteous  grace, 
Happier  yet,  in  rites  so  cordial,  to  have  utterance  and  place. 

In  your  city  rows  palatial  has  a  manfion  flood  apart, 
Not  in  aspect  nor  pretenfion,  fingle  in  its  saintly  heart ; 
When  the  tides  of  greed  and  traffic  swept  the  limits  of  the  town, 
'Twas  a  citadel  of  virtue  and  a  fhrine  of  pure  renown. 

There  the  Muse  that  knew  Anacreon,  that  made  Roman  Horace 

great, 

Shunning  Caesar's  jewelled  favors,  at  the  modeft  firefide  sate, 
Lit  the  wintry  coals  with  splendor,  turned  the  deep  hiftoric  page, 
Held  the  burning  lamp  of  Fancy  to  the  problems  of  the  age ; 

When  the  great  ideas  came  fmgly  to  the  crowded  market-place, 
Looking  wanly  for  a  welcome  in  each  money-getting  face, 
And  the  high  police  of  fafhion  urged  the  vagrants  to  give  room, 
They,  our  Chief  of  song  encountering,  grew  speedily  at  home. 


37 

He  had  many  a  measure  for  us  ;  at  his  forge  he  wrought  two-fold, 
On  the  iron  fhield  of  Freedom,  and  the  poet's  links  of  gold. 
All  the  while  a  song  was  finging,  others  better  knew  than  he, 
For  the  even  ftanzas  of  his  life  made  subtleft  melody. 

He  was  a  veteran  leader  ere  his  forehead  gained  its  snows  ; 
And  ftill  before  the  pilgrim  flock  his  filver  summons  goes. 
No  wild  and  desert  wafte  he  brings,  with  lurid  day  and  night, 
But  paftures  of  serenity,  and  founts  of  clear  delight. 

We  have  journeyed  far  to  praise  him,  let  us  also  praise  the  hour, 
For  the  travail   throes   of  Conscience,  and  the  newest  birth    of 

power ; 

Let  us  praise  the  faultless  victims,  and  the  living  who  have  bent 
O'er  the  wealth  of  Nature  ravifhed,  with  a  terrible  consent. 

For  sorrow  from  the  city  to  the  martial  camp  has  fled, 

To  hunt,  with  her  funereal  torch,  the  features  of  the  dead. 

Another  and  another  son  the  fatal  fheaf  doth  bind, 

But  nothing  of  the  thoughts  of  God,  or  hope  of  human  kind. 

Resurrection  in  the  valley  !     Resurrection  on  the  more  ! 

When  great  Juftice  is  eftablimed,  we  mall  have  our  own  once 

more  ; 

Not  like  us,  unfixed,  inconftant  in  our  issues  great  and  small, 
But  a  phalanx  set  in  marble  for  the  future's  judgment  call. 

Long  remain  the  noble  Poet,  priceless  hoftage  of  our  love  ! 
Vainly  floats  the  winged  message  from  the  banquet  halls  of  Jove, 


Vainly  voices  from  Valhalla  name  the  champion  of  the  free ; 
He  has  paeans  yet  to  utter,  he  muft  crown  our  vi&ory. 

When  the  moment  comes  to  claim  him,  that  muft  come  to  claim 

us  all, 

Hearts  that  cherim  human  longings  will  be  darkened  by  his  fall ; 
But  immortal  Truth  mall  welcome  her  adorer  to  her  breaft, 
Saying:  "Things  are  changed  between  us  now  ;  on  earth  I  was 

thy  gueft." 

As  {he  ended,  her  charmed  hearers  were  ftill  liftening  to 
her  words,  pronounced  in  exquifitely  muncal  tones,  when 
Mr.  Cranch  handed  to  the  Prefident  a  letter  for  Mr.  Bryant, 
which  was  read  before  delivery. 

CENTURY  ROOMS,  NEW  YORK,  Nov.  i,  1864. 

DEAR  SIR  : 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Artift-members  of  the  Century,  it  was 
agreed  that  some  fimple  but  appropriate  teftimonial  of  the  honor 
and  efteem  in  which  you  are  held  among  us,  ought  to  be  presented 
by  us  to  you,  on  your  yoth  birthday.  On  this  feftive  occafion, 
when  the  Century  fteps  forward  to  honor  the  Patriot  and  Poet 
who  has  so  long  and  faithfully  served  his  country  in  his  verse 
and  in  the  columns  of  his  Journal,  we,  too,  wifh  to  express  our 
confideration  of  the  sympathy  you  have  ever  manifefted  towards 
the  Artifts,  and  the  high  rank  you  have  ever  accorded  to  art.  Be 
assured,  dear  Sir,  that  the  tribute  of  our  love  and  admiration  is  not 
formal,  but  cordial.  And  as  we  are  accuftomed  neither  to  speech- 


39 


making  nor  to  elaborate  letter-writing,  we  defire  that  the  few 
words  we  have  to  say,  may  be  said  not  to  you  only,  but  to  the 
friends  who  will  gather  here  to  greet  you  on  your  birthday. 

We  afk  you  then,  dear  Sir,  to  accept  from  the  Artift-members 
of  the  Century,  a  portfolio  of  Sketches,  knowing  no  more  expres- 
five  form  of  teftifying  to  you  the  sentiments  with  which  we  fhall 
meet  you  on  the  evening  of  your  approaching  anniversary. 

We  have  the  honor  to  be,  in  behalf  of  the  Artifts,  the  Com 
mittee, 

DANIEL  HUNTINGTON, 

ASHER    B.    DURAND, 

CHRISTOPHER  P.  CRANCH. 

The  artifts  are  the  heart  of  the  Century ;  as  soon  as*  the 
letter  was  read,  the  crowded  company  opened  a  passage,  and 
a  portfolio  was  brought  in,  mounted  on  a  Hand  of  the  niceft 
workmanfliip,  and  made  to  contain  fmifhed  fketches  by  the 
members,  whose  names  follow  : 

EUGENE  BENSON,  FELIX  O.  C.  DARLEY, 

ALBERT  BIERSTADT,  A.  B.  DURAND, 

CARL  BRANDT,  C.  D.  GAMBRILL, 

H.  R.  BROWN,  S.  R.  GIFFORD, 

FREDERICK  E.  CHURCH,  REGIS  GIGNOUX, 

SAMUEL  COLMAN,  HENRY  PETERS  GRAY, 

CHRISTOPHER  P.  CRANCH,  GEORGE  H.  HALL, 

JASPER  P.  CROPSEY,  W.  J.  HAYS, 

W.  P.  W.  DANA,  WILLIAM  HAZELTINE, 


40 

W.  J.  HENNESSY,  E.  D.  NELSON, 

THOMAS  HICKS,  RICHARD  H.  PARK, 

DANIEL  HUNTINGTON,  H.  W.  ROBBINS, 

EASTMAN  JOHNSON,  RICHARD  M.  STAIGG, 

JOHN  F.  KENSETT,  J.  B.  STEARNS, 

EDWARD  I.  KUNTZE,  WILLIAM  OLIVER  STONE, 

JOHN  LA  FARGE,  JAMES  A.  SUYDAM, 

Louis  LANG,  BAYARD  TAYLOR, 

THOMAS  LE  CLEAR,  LAUNT  THOMPSON, 

E.  LEUTZE,  ELIPHALET  TERRY, 

H.  A.  LOOP,  CALVERT  VAUX, 

JERVIS  MCENTEE,  J.  Q.  A.  WARD, 
WILLIAM  WHITTREDGE. 


At  the  same  moment,  Mr.  Daniel  Huntington,  Prefident 
of  the  National  Academy  of  Defign,  ftepped  upon  the  plat 
form,  and  addressed  his  friend  of  many  years. 

REMARKS    OF   MR.    HUNTINGTON. 

Honored  and  beloved  Poet :  The  artifts  of  this  club  have  en- 
trufted  me  with  the  privilege  of  presenting  to  you  this  colle&ion 
of  fketches,  in  token  of  their  love  and  admiration.  A  beautiful 
ftand  and  portfolio  have  been  added  through  the  liberality  of  seve 
ral  amateur  members.  There  is  an  illuftrious  artift,  whose  name, 
like  your  own,  is  imperifhably  traced  in  the  interwoven  ftory  of 
our  art  and  literature,  who,  from  his  intimate  relations  with  you, 


as  well  as  from  his  long  acknowledged  leadership  in  our  profeffion, 
is  entitled  to  the  honor  of  acting  for  us  on  this  occafion ;  but 
Durand  is  absent  or  iilent,  and  therefore  I  have  the  pleasure,  in 
his  name,  and  in  behalf  of  all  the  artifts,  of  greeting  you  to-night 
as  one  of  their  own  body.  Indeed,  Sir,  the  artifts  love  you  very 
much,  and  you  know  it ;  we  claim  you  as  one  of  us,  remembering 
that  you  were  one  of  the  original  members  of  the  old  Sketch  Club, 
and  a  member  and  founder  of  the  National  Academy  of  Defign — 
a  brother  of  the  pencil  moft  dear  to  all  our  hearts.  The  fketches 
for  the  portfolio  have  not  all  been  finifhed,  owing  to  the  Shortness 
of  the  time,  the  late  return  of  many  from  their  autumn  haunts,  and 
their  defire  to  make  their  offerings  worthy  of  their  purpose.  Such 
a  labor  of  love  will  not  be  flightly  done,  and  when  soon  it  (hall  be 
completed,  it  will  be  marked  by  the  warm  affection  and  deep  rever 
ence  we  feel  for  our  poet-brother  in  the  divine  art. 

Of  the  vaft  multitudes  who,  with  ever-growing  delight,  bend 
over  your  pages,  or  of  those  more  familiar  friends  who  have  met 
here  to  do  you  honor,  there  are  none  whose  hearts  glow  with 
deeper  joy  and  pride  than  do  those  of  the  artifts  who  to-night  take 
part  in  this  feftival  solemnity.  For  many  years,  by  mountain  and 
ftream,  and  in  the  ftillness  of  the  ftudio,  we  have  been  cheered  by 
your  vivid  pictures  of  American  scenery,  and  inspired  by  your  songs 
of  human  freedom,  and  we  pray  that  God  may  grant  you  yet  many 
years  to  charm  our  hearts  with  new  images  of  truth  and  beauty ; 
and  when  this  dark  and  bloody  war-cloud  shall  have  passed  forever, 
in  the  serene  evening  of  your  life,  to  fing  for  our  whole  people 
the  cradle-song  of  a  new-born  American  Liberty. 
6 


42 


MR.    BRYANT    ANSWERED  '. 

Allow  me,  through  you,  as  one  of  their  representatives,  to 
return  to  the  artifts  of  the  Century  my  beft  acknowledgments  for 
the  superb  gift  they  have  made  me.  I  have  no  title  to  it  but  their 
generofity,  yet  I  rejoice  to  possess  it,  and  mail  endeavor  to  preserve 
it  as  long  as  I  live. 

Among  the  artifts  of  our  country  are  some  of  my  oldest  and 
best  friends.  In  their  conversation  I  have  taken  great  delight,  and 
derived  from  it  much  inftru£tion.  In  them  the  love  and  the  study 
of  nature  tend  to  preserve  the  native  fimplicity  of  character,  to 
make  them  frank  and  ingenuous  and  to  divert  their  attention  from 
selfifh  interests.  I  mail  prize  this  gift,  therefore,  not  only  as  a 
memorial  of  the  genius  of  our  artists,  in  which  respecl:  alone  it 
possesses  a  high  value,  but  also  as  a  token  of  the  good  will  of  a 
class  of  men  for  whom  I  cherim  a  particular  regard  and  esteem. 


This  very  interesting  interlude  was  watched  with  the 
most  marked  sympathy  by  the  numerous  audience,  who  were 
especially  touched  by  the  iincere  and  fimple  words :  "  the 
artists  love  you,  and  you  know  it."  The  East,  the  West, 
the  South,  had  given  expreffion  to  their  sentiments  ;  so  soon 
as  Mr.  Huntington  stepped  down,  the  Prendent  introduced 
him  who  was  to  speak  for  the  whole  country,  for  its  one 
people,  and  its  full  conftellation  of  States. 


43 
BRYANT'S   SEVENTIETH  BIRTHDAY. 

BY    OLIVER    WENDELL    HOLMES. 

O  even-handed  Nature  !  we  confess 

This  life  that  men  so  honor,  love,  and  bless, 

Has  filled  thine  olden  measure.     Not  the  less 

We  count  the  precious  seasons  that  remain  ; 

Strike  not  the  level  of  the  golden  grain, 

But  heap  it  high  with  years,  that  earth  may  gain 

What  heaven  can  lose, — for  heaven  is  rich  in  song : 

Do  not  all  poets,  dying,  still  prolong 

Their  broken  chants  amid  the  seraph  throng, 

Where,  blind  no  more,  Ionia's  bard  is  seen, 
And  England's  heavenly  minstrel  fits  between 
The  Mantuan  and  the  wan-cheeked  Florentine  ? 

This  was  the  first  sweet  finger  in  the  cage 
Of  our  close-woven  life.     A  new-born  age 
Claims  in  his  vesper  song  its  heritage : 

Spare  us,  oh  spare  us  long  our  heart's  defire ! 
Moloch,  who  calls  our  children  through  the  fire, 
Leaves  us  the  gentle  master  of  the  lyre. 

We  count  not  on  the  dial  of  the  sun 

The  hours,  the  minutes,  that  his  sands  have  run  ; 

Rather,  as  on  those  flowers  that  one  by  one 


44 


From  earliest  dawn  their  ordered  bloom  display 
Till  evening's  planet  with  her  guiding  ray 
Leads  in  the  blind  old  mother  of  the  day, 

We  reckon  by  his  songs,  each  song  a  flower, 
The  long,  long  daylight,  numbering  hour  by  hour, 
Each  breathing  sweetness  like  a  bridal  bower. 

His  morning  glory  fhall  we  e'er  forget? 
His  noon-tide's  full-blown  lily  coronet  ? 
His  evening  primrose  has  not  opened  yet ; 

Nay,  even  if  creeping  Time  fhould  hide  the  fkies 
In  midnight  from  his  century-laden  eyes, 
Darkened  like  his  who  sang  of  Paradise, 

Would  not  some  hidden  song-bud  open  bright 

As  the  resplendent  cactus  of  the  night 

That  floods  the  gloom  with  fragrance  and  with  light  ? 

How  can  we  praise  the  verse  whose  mufic  flows 
With  solemn  cadence  and  majestic  close, 
Pure  as  the  dew  that  filters  through  the  rose  ? 

How  fhall  we  thank  him  that  in  evil  days 
He  faltered  never, — nor  for  blame,  nor  praise, 
Nor  hire,  nor  party,  {named  his  earlier  lays  ? 

But  as  his  boyhood  was  of  manliest  hue, 
So  to  his  youth  his  manly  years  were  true, 
All  dyed  in  royal  purple  through  and  through  ! 


45 


He  for  whose  touch  the  lyre  of  Heaven  is  strung 
Needs  not  the  flattering  toil  of  mortal  tongue  : 
Let  not  the  finger  grieve  to  die  unsung ! 

Marbles  forget  their  message  to  mankind  : 

In  his  own  verse  the  poet  still  we  find, 

In  his  own  page  his  memory  lives  enftirined, 

As  in  their  amber  sweets  the  smothered  bees, — 
As  the  fair  cedar,  fallen  before  the  breeze, 
Lies  self-embalmed  amidst  the  mouldering  trees. 

Poets,  like  youngest  children,  never  grow 
Out  of  their  mother's  fondness.     Nature  so 
Holds  their  soft  hands,  and  will  not  let  them  go, 

Till  at  the  last  they  track  with  even  feet 
Her  rhythmic  footsteps,  and  their  pulses  beat 
Twinned  with  her  pulses,  and  their  lips  repeat 

The  secrets  fhe  has  told  them,  as  their  own  : 
Thus  is  the  inmost  soul  of  Nature  known, 
And  the  rapt  minstrel  (hares  her  awful  throne ! 

O  lover  of  her  mountains  and  her  woods, 

Her  bridal  chamber's  leafy  solitudes, 

Where  Love  himself  with  tremulous  step  intrudes, 

Her  snows  fall  harmless  on  thy  sacred  fire  : 
Far  be  the  day  that  claims  thy  sounding  lyre 
To  join  the  mufic  of  the  angel  choir  ! 


46 


Yet,  fmce  life's  amplest  measure  must  be  filled, 
Since  throbbing  hearts  must  be  forever  stilled, 
And  all  must  fade  that  evening  sunsets  gild, 

Grant,  Father,  ere  he  close  the  mortal  eyes 

That  see  a  Nation's  reeking  sacrifice, 

Its  smoke  may  vanifh  from  these  blackened  fkies  ! 

Then,  when  his  summons  comes,  fince  come  it  must, 
And,  looking  heavenward  with  unfaltering  trust, 
He  wraps  his  drapery  round  him  for  the  dust, 

His  last  fond  glance  will  show  him  o'er  his  head 
The  Northern  fires  beyond  the  zenith  spread 
In  lambent  glory,  blue  and  white  and  red, — 

The  Southern  cross  without  its  bleeding  load, 

The  milky  way  of  peace  all  freshly  strowed, 

And  every  white-throned  star  fixed  in  its  lost  abode  ! 

These  lines  were  illuminated  by  the  earneftness  with 
which  they  were  pronounced;  the  eye  and  voice  of  the 
speaker  interpreted  and  vivified  every  word.  He  was  heard 
with  the  greateft  enthufiasm ;  it  seemed,  that  like  the  bed 
matters  of  painting  in  Italy,  the  poet  was  attaining  a  second 
manner,  even  more  beautiful  than  his  firft,  and  had  seized 
the  occalion  of  an  aft  of  friendly  juftice  to  another,  to  make 
a  revelation  of  his  own  increase  of  power. 


47 

The  Prefident,  with  Mrs.  Bryant,  followed  by  Mr.  Bryant 
and  Mrs.  Howe,  now  led  the  way  to  the  banqueting-room, 
of  which  the  walls  were  adorned  by  pidures,  painted  by 
artifts  of  the  Century.  All  eyes  turned  to  the  portrait  of 
Bryant  by  his  venerable  friend  Durand,  which  was  profusely 
decorated  with  laurel  and  the  choicefl  natural  flowers.  After 
a  fliort  time  given  to  the  abundant  feast  provided  by  the 
House  Committee  of  the  Century,  the  company  returned  to 
the  large  saloon,  where  their  first  greeting  was  from  the 
clergy. 

The  venerable  Rev.  Dr.  Allen,  formerly  Prefident  of 
Bowdoin  College,  and  honorably  known  to  all  students  of 
American  Biography,  the  friend  of  Bryant's  father,  familiar 
with  the  home  of  Bryant  from  his  cradle,  sent  this  bene- 
di&ion : 

FOURSCORE  YEARS  TO  THREESCORE  YEARS 
AND  TEN. 

November  3^,   1864. 

Thy  years  threescore  and  ten  this  day  ! 

Thy  youthful  poet-prophet's  word 
Of  TRUTH'S  great  conflict  made  display, 

By  which  the  soldier's  soul  is  stirred. 


"  TRUTH,  cruflied  to  earth,  fhall  rise  again  j 

The  eternal  years  of  God  are  hers  ; 
But  error,  wounded,  writhes  in  pain, 
And  dies  among  his  worfhippers." 

BRYANT'S  POEMS,  page  2,09. 

Another  ten  of  years  be  thine 

With  His  great  love  who  came  to  save, 

And  ceaseless  joys  of  truth  divine 
To  cheer  thy  pathway  to  the  grave. 

The  hills  the  same  to  our  young  eyes, 
The  same  the  vales,  that  gave  delight ; 

The  loved  ones,  passed  to  peaceful  fkies, 
Shall  we  not  join  in  glory  bright  ? 

Christ  is  the  "WAY,  the  TRUTH,  the  LIFE;" 

He  leads  no  trusting  friend  astray ; 
His  arm  will  end  the  valiant  strife, 

His  grace  give  victor's  crown  for  aye  ! 

To  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT,  New  York, 

from  WILLIAM  ALLEN,  Northampton,  Mass., 
both  natives  of  Western  Massachusetts. 

The  next  communication  was  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  James 
Walker,  late  Prefident  of  the  Univernty  of  Cambridge. 

EXTRACT    OF    DR.    WALKER'S    LETTER. 

"I   feel   a  peculiar  interest  in  the  festival  in  honor  of  Mr. 
Bryant,  for   I  am  a  man  of  the  same  years,  though  having  a  few 


49 


months  the  start  of  him.  I  should  also  be  glad  to  be  there  in 
order  to  testify  the  respect  I  have  always  entertained  for  his  genius 
and  character." 


A  highly  respefted  Protestant  Episcopal  Clergyman  of 
the  far  West  sent  the  following : 


To  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT, 

ON    HIS    SEVENTIETH    BIRTHDAY. 

November  3,   1864. 

Thy  patient  feet  have  reached  to-day 
The  allotted  goal  of  human  years  ; 

Thanks,  thanks  to  Him  who  bids  thee  stay 
Awhile,  yet,  from  the  timeless  spheres. 

Thanks  for  thy  journey  brave  and  long ; 

A  glorious  pathway  has  it  been, 
Melodious  with  majestic  song, 

And  hallowed  in  the  hearts  of  men. 

Earth's  face  is  dearer  for  thy  gaze. 

The  fields  that  thou  hast  travelled  o'er 
Are  fuller  blossomed,  and  the  ways 

Of  toil  more  pleasant  than  before. 


The  April  pastures  breathe  more  sweet, 
The  brooks  in  deeper  mufings  glide, 

Old  woodlands  grander  hymns  repeat, 
And  holier  seems  the  Autumn-tide. 

The  crystal  founts  and  summer  rains 
Are  haunted  now  with  pictured  grace ; 

The  winds  have  learned  more  tender  strains, 
And  greet  us  with  more  kind  embrace. 

More  meekly  pleads  each  flow'ret's  eye, 
On  gentler  errands  comes  the  snow, 

And  birds  write  on  the  evening  fky 
More  gracious  lessons,  as  they  go. 

The  clouds,  the  stars,  the  sea,  the  grave, 
Wide  prairie  wastes  and  crowded  marts, 

All  that  is  fair,  and  good,  and  brave, 
In  peaceful  homes  and  gen'rous  hearts, 

Through  thee  their  wond'rous  meanings  tell : 
And  as  men  go  to  Work  and  pray — 

Feeling  thy  song's  persuafive  spell — 
Love's  face  seems  closer  o'er  their  way. 

Before  thee  Error  howled  and  fled  ; 

And  in  thy  path,  though  bold  and  strong, 
Oppreflion  quailed.     From  thy  hand  sped 

The  glittering  shafts  that  crippled  wrong. 


And  thy  lips  swelled  the  stirring  peal 

That  roused  the  people  to  uphold 
The  sacred  cause  of  commonweal. 

O,  may  thy  happy  eyes  behold 

Fair  Freedom's  triumph,  and  the  sway 
Of  Peace,  which  after  strife  and  pain, 

Shall  usher  the  illustrious  day 
Of  a  great  Nation  born  again  ! 

Smooth  be  thy  latest  stages  here, 

Revered,  and  loved,  and  watched  by  those 

To  whom  thou  seemest  still  more  dear, 
The  further  on  thy  journey  goes. 

And  keeping  yet  the  child-like  heart — 

Pure  home  of  every  sacred  guest — 
At  last,  in  perfect  peace,  depart, 

O  Bryant,  to  thy  blissful  rest. 

H.  N.  POWERS. 

DAVENPORT,  IOWA,  Nov.,  1864. 

The  Century  regretted  exceedingly  the  absence  of  the 
Rev.  Dr.  William  A.  Muhlenberg.  To  friendly  responses 
in  reply  to  their  invitation  he  added : 

EXTRACT    OF    DR.    WILLIAM    A.    MUHLENBERG's    LETTER. 

"  I  beg  of  him  whom  you  mean  so  juftly  to  honor,  the  accept 
ance  of  my  greetings  on  his  entering  his  threescore  and  ten,  while 


52 

yet  in  the  spring-time  of  his  Muse — the  trueft  poet  of  Nature  in 
our  land,  may  he  long  live  to  attune  his  chords  to  the  Supernatural 
as  well." 

The  Rev.  Charles  T.  Brooks,  who,  as  he  said,  was  "  with 
us  at  all  events  in  the  spirit,"  wrote  : 

EXTRACT    OF    REV.    CHARLES    T.    BROOKS'S    LETTER. 

"  Mr.  Bryant  has  been  for — fifty  years  fhall  I  say  ? — one  of  my 
nobleft  teachers  in  the  school  of  beauty,  wisdom,  and  piety  ;  and 
my  heart  and  all  that  is  within  me  draws  me  to  the  feftival  at 
which  so  many  fine  minds  and  noble  hearts  will  express  for  me 
my  feelings  of  gratitude,  respecl:,  and  veneration  !  " 

EXTRACT  OF  A  LETTER  FROM  REV.  DR.  A.  CLEVELAND  COXE, 
BISHOP  ELECT  OF  THE  WESTERN  DIOCESE  OF  NEW  YORK, 
TO  THE  CENTURY. 

"  Thanking  you  for  the  honor  of  your  invitation  to  attend  a 
celebration  of  the  yoth  anniversary  of  our  diftinguimed  fellow- 
citizen,  Mr.  Bryant,  I  am  very  sorry,  as  an  admirer  of  his  poetical 
genius,  that  other  engagements  will  not  permit  of  my  being  present 
with  you  on  the  evening  of  Saturday  next." 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  Osgood,  of  the  Century,  being 
present,  spoke  as  follows  : 


53 

THE    FELLOWSHIP    OF   THE    ARTS. 

What  sentiment  is  more  in  time  and  place  than  that  of  the 
"  Fellowship  of  the  Beautiful  Arts  "  ?  Here  are  Architecture, 
Sculpture,  Painting — those  arts  that  depend  most  upon  the  hand, 
and  appeal  most  to  the  eye  ;  here,  too,  are  Mufic,  Poetry,  the 
Drama,  Eloquence — those  arts  that  depend  mainly  upon  the  voice, 
and  appeal  mainly  to  the  ear  ;  here  they  all  are  in  the  persons  of 
accomplished  masters,  and  pledge  each  other  in  loyal  brotherhood. 
Arts  of  the  two  imperial  senses,  the  Eye  and  the  Ear,  they  are  the 
two  doors  of  the  Gate  called  Beautiful  that  leads  into  the  temple 
of  the  Highest.  The  venerable  chiefs  of  them  both  are  here ; 
for  that  portrait  of  BRYANT  from  the  pencil  of  DURAND  brings 
the  powers  of  the  eye  and  ear  into  unison,  and  those  garlands  are 
their  coronation.  Let  us  all  say,  "  Long  live  that  union  and  those 
men." 

How  marvellous  are  those  two  senses  and  the  arts  that  appeal 
to  them  !  The  eye  and  the  ear,  how  different,  yet  how  like  ;  the 
one  more  exterior  and  expanfive,  the  other  more  close  and  inten- 
five  ;  the  one  moving  on  waves  of  light,  the  other  on  waves  of  air  j 
the  one  rejoicing  in  form  and  color,  light  and  shade,  the  other  in 
tone  and  melody,  cadence  and  swell ;  the  one,  perhaps,  more 
material,  the  other  more  spiritual ;  yet  both  almost  like  different 
functions  of  the  same  sense  and  different  oracles  of  the  same  law, 
matching  the  tints  of  the  prismatic  spectrum  with  the  chords  of 
the  mufical  scale,  as  if  color  voiced  itself  into  song,  and  song  shone 
forth  into  color.  Thus  one,  and  thus  different,  the  eye  and  the 
ear  are  like  the  Eros  and  Psyche  of  old,  more  of  Eros  in  the  eye, 
more  of  Psyche  in  the  ear,  yet  both  one  in  that  loving  embrace 


54 


which  all  arts  have  so  celebrated,  both  claffic  and  Christian,  and 
which  even  the  Christian  muse  has  been  not  ashamed  to  call  a  type 
of  the  mystical  union  of  body  and  soul  in  the  life  immortal. 

All  the  arts  of  the  eye  and  ear  greet  each  other  here,  and  put 
to  us  who  are  not  of  their  craft  the  queftion,  What  right  have  we 
to  be  here  among  these  mafters  ?  Right  enough  ;  and  by  right, 
not  by  favor,  we  claim  our  place — the  right  of  the  scholar  to  be 
with  the  mafter,  the  right  of  the  devotee  to  be  at  the  mrine.  We 
are  all,  even  the  humbleft  of  us,  at  home  here,  as  scholars  or  lovers 
of  art ;  and  without  such  companionmip,  what  can  artifts  do,  and 
who  will  appreciate  and  encourage  them  ?  It  is  a  great  law  of  life 
that  original  genius  in  the  mafter  needs  genial  susceptibility  in  the 
disciple,  as  the  seed  needs  the  soil  to  grow  in.  Such  geniality  we 
all  have,  and  none  more  so  than  those  here  present  who  are  our 
moft  modeft  guefts — those  fair  friends  of  our  artifts.  If  art  has 
its  kings,  why  not  its  queens  ?  and  a  queenly  genius  charmed  us 
juft  now. 

Why  not  say  that  we,  too,  all  of  us,  are,  or  ought  to  be,  artifts, 
and  have  something  to  do  with  maping  rough  material  into  ideal 
perfection  ?  Why  surrender  the  honors  of  this  fellowmip  to  any 
exclufive  set  of  men  ?  Why  not  rather  maintain  that  it  is  the 
work  of  every  true  life  to  work  out  a  noble  ideal  according  to  the 
wisdom  that  is  from  God,  by  the  love  that  seeks  Him  as  its  end, 
and  in  the  kingdom  that  gathers  all  that  is  lovely  to  Him  in  blessed 
communion  ?  Only  as  we  take  this  ftand  do  we  honor  the  arts 
duly,  and  save  our  gifts  from  conceit,  and  make  genius  a  bond  of 
unity,  inftead  of  a  crazing  hero-wormip.  All  the  arts  are  greater 
than  our  artifts,  and  poetry  is  greater  than  the  greateft  poet.  Every 
man  is  a  debtor  to  his  calling,  and  the  higher  the  calling  the  greater 


55 

is  the  debt.  We  are  the  poet's  friends  and  admirers,  not  his 
adorers,  and  his  gentle  bearing  and  speech  help  us  to  honor  high 
Art  and  its  Divine  Archetype  in  honoring  this  gifted  and  faithful 
servant.  The  true  check  upon  adulation  is  responfibility  ;  and  he 
who  takes  his  talents  from  the  hand  of  the  Perfect  Mafter  is  in  no 
danger  of  being  spoiled  by  flattery,  but  rather  measures  dignity  by 
service,  and  is  humbler  as  he  soars,  because  nearer  to  the  Eternal 
Mind. 

I  will  not  undertake  to  preach  here  to-night,  for  we  are  all  free 
companions,  unassuming  good  fellows,  in  this  Century  Club,  with 
out  any  bigots  or  bores,  that  I  know  of;  but  I  am  in  perfect  keep 
ing  with  your  general  temper,  and  the  spirit  of  our  honored  gueft, 
in  affirming  that  religion  is  the  supreme  art,  and  God  is  the  Su 
preme  Defigner,  flooding  the  fkies  with  glory,  rilling  the  earth  with 
loveliness,  calling  all  souls  to  build  life  according  to  His  perfect 
archetype,  and  to  worfhip  and  enjoy  Him  in  the  beauty  of  holiness. 
No  other  than  He  gave  this  poet,  our  brother,  his  gift  and  miffion  ; 
and  God,  who  rounded  and  rolled  the  spheres,  taught  him  as  a  child 
the  sweep  of  his  vifion  and  the  rhythm  of  his  verse.  Seventy 
years  of  God's  providence  ftand  before  us  in  that  honored  form, 
and  we  hear  their  solemn  footfteps  with  the  march  of  this  feftive 
mufic.  What  a  seventy  years — 1794-1864 — from  the  fall  of 
Robespierre  and  French  terrorism  to  the  downfall  of  American 
flavery  and  its  code  of  terror  ;  from  the  rise  of  Napoleon  to  the 
uprifmg  of  this  free  Republic  !  God  grant  that  our  poet  may  fmg 
its  grand  jubilee,  every  {hackle  broken,  and  every  loft  ftar  returned  ! 
What  ages  of  invention,  enterprise,  and  thought  are  concentrated 
into  that  space  !  How  mildly,  yet  mightily,  those  years  are  em 
bodied  and  interpreted  in  that  face,  and  voice,  and  pen  !  How 


much  there  is  in  that  presence  to  bring  our  own  changing  years 
together,  and  to  aflimilate  our  different  lives  !  Some  of  us  had  his 
verse  sung  to  us  in  infancy ;  almoft  all  of  us  read  his  "  Waterfowl," 
and  "  Green  River,"  and  "  Thanatopfis,"  at  school.  Every  fair 
scene  in  nature  is  fairer  by  his  interpretation  ;  the  nation,  liberty, 
humanity,  God,  are  nearer  and  dearer  to  us  by  his  ftirring  odes, 
and  calm,  uplifting  hymns.  Nor  let  his  prose  writing  be  forgotten 
in  our  zeal  to  do  honor  to  his  verse,  for  he  who  is  master  of  prose 
is  master  of  all  beauty  j  and  in  this  work,  the  poet  and  historian  are 
one  as  here  at  our  festival,  in  host  and  guest.  The  pen  as  thus 
wielded  builds,  paints,  and  carves  ;  fmgs,  rhythms,  acts,  and  pleads, 
and  calls  all  the  Muses  at  its  spell. 

God  bless  our  poet,  and  the  whole  fellowfhip  of  the  beautiful 
arts  !  These  forty  artists  have  brought  to  you  in  that  portfolio  the 
precious  offerings  of  their  gifted  hands.  In  the  name  of  our 
scholars  and  pastors,  as  one  of  their  hearty  brothers,  I  bring  a  leaf 
of  palm  to  lay  among  your  laurels  in  behalf  of  the  Art  Divine, 
that  is  second  to  none  of  the  Arts,  and  the  inspiration  of  all. 

• 

The  Prefident  next  direfted  attention  to  poets  and  friends 
who  were  absent.  An  earned  invitation  had  been  extended 
to  Mr.  John  Pierpont. 

EXTRACT    OF    MR.    PIERPONT?S    LETTER    IN    REPLY. 

At  first  I  said  within  my  heart,  I'll  go. — 
But  second  thoughts  forbade  me  to  engage, 
At  such  a  time  in  such  a  pilgrimage. 


57 

My  health  infirm,  the  season,  and  my  age, 

— (For  more  than  half  my  eightieth  year  is  spent,) — 

Admonifh  me  to  stay  at  home  content, 

And  worfhip,  like  the  Sabian,  from  afar, 

Killing  my  hand  towards  our  brightest  star. 

EXTRACT    FROM    MR.  CHARLES    SPRAGUE's    REPLY. 

"  Your  tempting  request  comes  to  me  on  my  own  birthday 
(October  26).  Now  and  then,  and  only  now  and  then,  do  I  regret 
the  infirmities  of  three-and-seventy  years.  I  am  senfibly  reminded 
of  them  at  the  present  time,  for  I  am  thereby  deprived  of  the 
privilege  of  uniting  in  a  worthy  tribute  to  one  whose  fame  is  the 
honest  pride  of  us  all." 

As  the  Prefident  pronounced  the  name  of  Mr.  Long 
fellow,  there  was  a  general  movement,  which  fliowed  that  no 
man  in  the  country  would  have  received  a  more  tender  and 
hearty  welcome. 

EXTRACT    OF    MR.    HENRY    W.    LONGFELLOW'S    LETTER. 

CAMBRIDGE,  Oct.  23^,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  BANCROFT: 

I  assure  you  nothing  would  give  me  greater  pleasure  than 
to  do  honor  to  Bryant,  at  all  times  and  in  all  ways ;  both  as  a  poet 
and  as  a  man.  He  has  written  noble  verse,  and  led  a  noble  life  ; 
and  we  are  all  proud  of  him.  I  am  glad  you  are  to  pay  him  the 


homage  of  this  Festival ;  and  fliould  rejoice  to  take  part  in  it,  if  it 
were  poflible.  But  I  am  really  too  unwell  to  be  present,  and  must, 
though  with  extreme  reluctance,  decline  your  very  cordial  invita 
tion. 

I  remain,  dear  Mr.  Bancroft, 

Yours  truly, 

HENRY  W.  LONGFELLOW. 

The  Century  regretted  the  absence  of  Mr.  Lowell,  and 
ftill  more  "  the  bitter  occafion  of  it."  Their  invitation  found 
him  a  mourner  at  the  obsequies  of  his  nephew,  Charles 
Russell  Lowell,  the  belt  scholar  among  his  contemporaries, 
from  boyhood  full  of  soul  and  of  honor,  faultless  as  friend, 
brother,  son,  husband,  patriot,  and  soldier ;  who,  equal  to  any 
career,  had,  on  the  breaking  out  of  the  rebellion,  given  him 
self  up  to  his  country  with  unselfifh  love ;  lithe,  delicately 
framed,  aftive,  imperturbably  self-balanced,  with  a  quick  eye 
and  celerity  of  thought  and  judgment,  had  in  rapid  succes- 
fion  commanded  a  company  of  cavalry,  a  regiment,  a  bri 
gade  ;  had  in  many  a  field,  as  at  Antietam,  braved  the  hail- 
ftorm  of  bullets ;  had  in  the  one  campaign  of  the  Shenandoah, 
had  thirteen  horses  fliot  under  him  in  battle ;  had,  on  the 
nineteenth  of  Odober,  nothing  daunted  by  one  terrible 
wound,  (till  led  the  final  glorious  cavalry  charge ;  and  had 
fallen  by  a  second  wound  in  the  moment  of  consummated 


59 

viftory ;  leaving  a  widow  of  twenty,  himself  not  yet  thirty ; 
beautiful  in  death,  as  in  life  he  had  been  lovely. 

EXTRACT    OF    MR.    JAMES    R.    LOWELLS    LETTER. 

IMv  DEAR  MR.  BANCROFT  : 
I  was  just  about  to  write  and  say  how  glad  I  fhould  be  to 
join  in  your  coming  festival,  when  the  sad  news  came  which  makes 
it  impoffible  that  I  fhould  do  so. 

It  would  have  been  a  particular  gratification  to  me,  could  I 
have  joined  in  any  public  expreffion  of  respect  for  Mr.  Bryant, 
who  as  Poet  has  done  so  much  for  the  honor  of  his  country,  and, 
as  Editor,  so  much  for  its  salvation.  The  lesson  of  his  character 
and  example  seems  to  me  of  such  lasting  value  that  I  am  rejoiced 
to  hear  attention  called  to  it  in  a  manner  so  distinguished. 


ON  BOARD  THE  SEVENTY-SIX. 

BY    JAMES    RUSSELL    LOWELL. 

Our  ship  lay  tumbling  in  an  angry  sea, 

Her  rudder  gone,  her  mainmast  o'er  the  fide  ; 

Her  scuppers  from  the  waves'  clutch  staggering  free, 

Trailed  threads  of  priceless  crimson  through  the  tide  ;' 

Sails,  shrouds,  and  spars  with  hostile  cannon  torn, 

We  lay,  awaiting  morn. 

Awaiting  morn,  such  morn  as  mocks  despair ; 
And  she  that  bore  the  promise  of  the  world 


6o 


Within  her  fides,  now  hopeless,  helmless,  bare, 
At  random  o'er  the  wildering  waters  hurled, 
The  reek  of  battle  drifting  slow  a-lee, 
Not  sullener  than  we. 

Morn  came  at  last  to  peer  into  our  woe, 

When  lo,  a  sail  !  now  surely  help  is  nigh, 

The  red  cross  flames  aloft,  Christ's  pledge, — but  no, 

Her  black  guns  grinning  hate,  she  rushes  by 

And  hails  us.     "  Gains  the  leak  ?     Ah,  so  we  thought ; 

Sink,  then,  with  curses  fraught  !  " 

I  leaned  against  my  gun  still  angry-hot, 
And  my  lids  tingled  with  the  tears  held  back  ; 
This  scorn  methought  was  crueller  than  shot ; 
The  manly  death-grip  in  the  battle-wrack, 
Yard-arm  to  yard-arm,  were  more  friendly  far 
Than  such  fear-smothered  war. 

Some,  faintly  loyal,  felt  their  pulses  lag 
With  the  slow  beat  that  doubts  and  then  despairs ; 
Some,  caitiff,  would  have  struck  the  starry  flag 
That  knits  us  with  our  past,  and  makes  us  heirs 
Of  deeds  high-hearted  as  were  ever  done 
'Neath  the  all-seeing  sun. 

But  one  there  was,  the  Singer  of  our  crew, 
Upon  whose  head  Age  waved  his  peaceful  fign, 
But  whose  red  heart's-blood  no  surrender  knew ; 
And  couchant  under  brows  of  maffive  line, 


6i 


The  eyes,  like  guns  beneath  a  parapet, 
Watched  charged  with  lightnings  yet. 

The  voices  of  the  hills  did  his  obey ; 

The  torrents  flashed  and  tumbled  in  his  song ; 

He  brought  our  native  fields  from  far  away, 

Or  set  us  mid  the  innumerable  throng 

Of  dateless  woods,  or  where  we  heard  the  calm 

Old  homestead's  evening  psalm. 

But  now  he  sang  of  faith  to  things  unseen, 
Of  freedom's  birthright  given  to  us  in  trust, 
And  words  of  doughty  cheer  he  spoke  between, 
That  made  all  earthly  fortune  seem -as  dust, 
Matched  with  that  duty,  old  as  time  and  new, 
Of  being  brave  and  true. 

We,  listening,  learned  what  makes  the  might  of  words,- 
Manhood  to  back  them,  constant  as  a  star ; 
His  voice  rammed  home  our  cannon,  edged  our  swords, 
And  sent  our  boarders  shouting ;  shroud  and  spar 
Heard  him  and  stiffened ;  the  sails  heard  and  wooed 
The  winds  with  loftier  mood. 

In  our  dark  hour  he  manned  our  guns  again  ; 
Remanned  ourselves  from  his  own  manhood's  store; 
Pride,  honor,  country,  throbbed  through  all  his  strain  j 
And  shall  we  praise  ?     God's  praise  was  his  before  ; 
And  on  our  futile  laurels  he  looks  down, 
Himself  our  bravest  crown. 


62 


Public  duty  detained  Mr.  Whittier  at  home ;  but  he 
did  not  fail  to  send  what  he  called  "  a  rough  draft  of  some 
verses,"  which  seemed  to  others  exquintely  nniflied. 

BRYANT. 

BY    JOHN    GREENLEAF    WHITTIER. 

I  praise  not  here  the  poet's  art, 

The  rounded  fitness  of  his  song  ; 
Who  weighs  him  from  his  life  apart 

Must  do  his  nobler  nature  wrong. 

Not  for  the  eye  familiar  grown 

With  beauty  elsewhere  undescried, — 

The  marvellous  gift  he  shares  alone 
With  him  who  walked  on  Rydal  fide  ; 

Not  for  rapt  hymn  nor  woodland  lay 

Too  grave  for  smiles,  too  sweet  for  tears, 

We  speak  his  praise  who  wears  to-day 
The  glory  of  his  seventy  years  ! 

When  Freedom  hath  her  own  again 

Let  happy  lips  his  songs  rehearse  : 
His  life  is  now  his  noblest  strain, 

His  manhood  better  than  his  verse. 

Thank  God !  his  hand  on  Nature's  keys 
Its  cunning  keeps  at  life's  full  span  ; 


63 

But  dimmed  and  dwarfed,  in  times  like  these, 
The  Poet  seems  befide  the  Man  ! 

So  be  it  !  —  Let  the  garlands  die  ! 

Fade  civic  wreath  and  finger's  meed  !  — 
Let  our  names  perish  if  thereby 

Our  country  may  be  saved  and  freed  ! 

A  letter  was  then  read  from  one,  who,  had  he  been 
present,  would  have  found  himself  environed  by  friends,  and 
the  objeft  of  universal  respeft.  His  words  were  as  follows  : 

BOSTON,  i^th  October,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  BANCROFT  : 

I  deeply  regret  that  I  cannot  be  with  you  on  the  evening 
of  the  5th,  to  join  you  in  doing  honor  to  the  Neftor  of  our  Ameri 
can  poets.  The  Neftor  of  our  poets,  I  may  call  him,  for  more 
than  one  reason,  for  of  his  poetry  it  may  be  truly  said,  as  of  the 
speech  of  the  Homeric  Veteran, 

Tov  KOI  and  -yh&aarjQ  P&ITOQ  yhvKi&v  p£ev  ai)6fj. 


Having  myself  touched  the  goal  of  threescore  years  and  ten, 
but  a  few  months  earlier  than  Mr.  Bryant,  I  can,  better  than  some 
of  you  youngfters,  enter  into  the  sentiment  of  the  tribute  which 
you  are  paying  to  him. 

I  have  through  life  been  a  great  lover  of  Mr.  Bryant's  poetry. 
My  admiration  of  it  began  in  early  youth,  with  his  firft  productions, 
and  is  one  of  the  juvenile  taftes,  which  after  years  and  severer 
habits  of  thought  have  confirmed  and  ftrengthened. 


64 

I  particularly  enjoy  Mr.  Bryant's  poetry,  because  I  can  under- 
fland  it.  It  is  probably  a  fign  that  I  am  somewhat  behind  the  age, 
that  I  have  but  little  relifti  for  elaborate  obscurity  in  literature,  of 
which  you  find  it  difficult  to  ftudy  out  the  meaning,  and  are  not 
sure  that  you  have  hit  upon  it,  at  laft.  This  is  too  much  the 
character  of  the  moft  popular  poetry  of  the  modern  Englifh  school. 

On  the  contrary,  our  noble  poetical  trio,  Bryant,  Longfellow, 
and  Whittier,  are  always  eafily  intelligible.  They  touch  the  fineft 
chords  of  tafte  and  feeling,  but  they  never  ftrain  at  effect.  This, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  the  higheft  merit,  in  every  department  of  litera 
ture,  and  in  poetry  it  is  well  called  Inspiration.  Surprise,  conceit, 
ftrange  combinations  of  imagery  and  expreflion,  may  be  success 
fully  managed,  but  it  is  merit  of  an  inferior  kind.  The  truly 
beautiful,  pathetic,  and  sublime,  is  always  fimple  and  natural,  and 
marked  by  a  certain  serene  unconsciousness  of  effort.  This  is  the 
character  of  Mr.  Bryant's  poetry. 

I  congratulate  the  Century  Club  on  the  opportunity  of  paying 
this  richly  earned  tribute  of  respect  and  affection  to  their  veteran, 
and  him  on  the  well-deserved  honor. 

The  taste,  the  culture,  and  the  patriotism  of  the  country  are, 
on  this  occafion,  in  full  sympathy  alike  with  those  who  weave  and 
with  him  who  wears  the  laurel  wreath. 

Happy  the  community  that  has  the  discernment  to  appreciate 
its  gifted  sons, — happy  the  poet,  the  artist,  the  scholar,  who  is  per 
mitted  to  enjoy,  in  this  way,  a  foretaste  of  posthumous  commemora 
tion  and  fame  ! 

I  remain,  my  dear  Mr.  Bancroft,  with  fincere  affection,  ever 
truly  yours, 

EDWARD  EVERETT. 


65 

It  was  now  recalled  to  mind  that  Mr.  Bryant  had  been 
bred  to  the  law.  The  Century  hoped  at  this  time  to  hear 
the  voice  of  their  venerable  ex-Prefident,  who  had  so  long 
and  so  efficiently  taken  the  chief  part  in  the  conduft  of  their 
affairs.  They  heard  with  sorrow  that  he  was  detained  from 
his  old  friends  by  his  grandson,  who  was  suffering  from  very 
severe  wounds,  received  in  defence  of  his  country. 


Saturday,  $th  November ,  1864. 

Hon.  GEORGE  BANCROFT, 

Prefident  of  The  Century  : 

I  regret  that  I  must  decline  the  kind  invitation  of  the  Prefi 
dent  and  Committee  of  management  to  be  present  at  the  meeting 
of  the  Century  this  evening  to  congratulate  their  most  distinguifhed 
member  on  his  Seventieth  birthday. 

Peculiar  circumstances  put  it  out  of  my  power  to  be  personally 
present,  but  I  cordially  join  in  the  warm  praises  and  wifhes  which 
will  be  expressed  to-night  by  many  eminent  men  and  felt  by  all. 

The  present  kindly  and  genial  autumn,  "  so  mercifully  dealing 
with  the  growths  of  summer,"  resembles  so  much  Bryant's  own 
advancing  age,  that  I  cannot  but  use  his  own  fimply  beautiful 
words  to  express  to  him  the  feelings  and  wishes  of  a  friendship  of 
many  years  : 

"  Like  the  kindly  season  may  life's  decline  come  o'er  him ; 
Paft  is  manhood's  summer,  the  frofty  months  are  here, 
Yet  be  genial  airs  and  a  pleasant  sunfhine  left  him, — 
Leaf,  and  fruit,  and  blossom,  to  deck  the  clofmg  year." 


66 


With  my  best  regards  to  my  fellow  members  and  their  guest 
of  the  evening, 

I  remain  yours, 

G.  C.  VERPLANCK. 

After  reading  this  letter,  the  Prefident  introduced  the 
Attorney  of  the  United  States  for  the  Diftrift  of  Massachu 
setts. 

SPEECH  OF  RICHARD  H.  DANA,  JR. 

MR.  PRESIDENT  : 

While  I  thank  you  and  the  gentlemen  of  the  Century  Club 
for  the  privilege  of  taking  part  in  this  moft  interefting  commemora 
tion,  I  feel  that  it  is  rather  in  a  representative  capacity  than  from 
any  personal  claims,  that  I  am  here.  Mr.  Bryant  has  kindly 
named  firft  in  his  enumeration  of  his  friends  not  with  us  to-night, 
one  whose  name  it  is  my  fortune  to  bear  in  another  generation.  I 
assure  Mr.  Bryant  that  there  is  no  one  among  his  almoft  countless 
friends,  present  or  absent,  whose  thoughts  gather  more  fondly 
about  the  associations  which  this  day  revives. 

It  is  now  nearly  fifty  years  fince  my  father  and  his  kinsman, 
Professor  Channing,  editing  the  North  American  Review,  received 
a  manuscript  poem,  from  an  anonymous  author,  offered  for  publica 
tion  in  that  journal.  They  read  it  again  and  again.  It  could  not 
be  said  to  give  promise,  to  hold  out  indications,  of  powers  to  be 
developed  by  time.  It  was  the  matured,  finimed  work  of  one 
already  a  mafter.  We  had  then  no  such  man  in  America.  They 
naturally  suspected  that  it  might  be  the  work  of  one  of  the  mature 


67 

poets  of  the  firft  rank  across  the  water,  or  poffibly  a  tranflation 
from  one  of  the  mafter  minds  on  the  continent  unfamiliar  to  them. 
They  gave  it  a  place  in  their  columns.  At  once,  it  commanded 
its  own  place  in  the  permanent  literature  of  the  Englifh  tongue. 
Its  title  was  "  Thanatopfis  "  ! 

But  who  was  the  author  ?  They  found  it  was  the  firft  con- 
fiderable  effort  of  a  youth,  fmce  grown  to  full  manhood,  who  had 
never  been  beyond  the  hills  of  Western  Massachusetts.  Having 
been  a  scholar  in  the  college  at  Williamstown,  he  had  studied  law, 
and  had  just  been  admitted  to  the  Bar  in  the  rural  county  of  Berk- 
fhire.  An  acquaintance  began,  which  ripened  into  a  friendfhip  of 
nearly  half  a  century,  and  which  I  have  a  double  reason  for  hoping 
the  Great  Separator  may  spare  for  many  years  to  come. 

No  poet,  Sir,  can  hope  for  permanence  to  his  fame  unless  he 
connects  himself  with  something  permanent  in  human  nature. 
Mr.  Bryant  has  always  been  true  to  Nature  and  to  Freedom.  A 
hard  neceffity  called  him  from  the  banks  of  the  river  he  had  made 
immortal,  from  the  flowers,  the  fields,  the  breezes,  the  birds,  the 
trees,  the  Ikies,  he  loved  as  his  life,  to  the  hard  pavements  of  your 
great  city, — to  the  unpitying  stones  of  Wall  Street.  There,  in  the 
dingy  editorial  closet,  amid  the  life-consuming  sounds  of  the  pub- 
liming  house  of  a  daily  commercial  and  political  journal,  he  was 
cheerful,  hopeful,  and  loyal.  Never  did  he  pervert  his  sacred  trust 
of  divine  poetry  to  the  service  of  fafhion,  or  trade,  or  party.  True 
to  nature,  nature  was  true  to  him.  Outfide  the  city  in  which  he 
sat  a  captive,  earth,  sea,  and  fky  were  full  of  his  unsubfidized  allies. 
The  air  breathed,  blue  ocean  sparkled,  the  leaves  shook,  the  birds 
of  the  air  sang  comfort  and  ftrength  to  his  brave,  patient  spirit. 
And  now  he  is  spared  to  see  Freedom  rifing  again  to  power  and 


68 


dignity  throughout  the   land,  and   Slavery,  like   his  own  immortal 
impersonation  of  Error,  dying  amidst  its  worshippers. 

Yes,  Sir,  so  long  as  there  shall  be  found  a  true  love  of  fimple 
nature,  the  Green  River,  the  Water  Fowl,  the  Evening  Wind,  the 
Death  of  the  Flowers,  will  be  cherished.  Wherever  there  is  a 
soul  capable  of  noble  seriousness,  the  Thanatopfis  and  the  Lines 
to  the  Past  will  be  remembered.  And  wherever,  in  any  clime  or 
age,  there  is  one  man  struggling  for  Truth  and  Freedom,  his  faint 
ing  spirit  shall  be  revived  by  those  words,  which,  hackneyed  though 
they  be,  time  cannot  wither  nor  custom  stale  : — "  Truth  crushed 
to  earth  shall  rise  again." 

The  theme  was  continued  by  a  member  of  the  Century. 

SPEECH    OF    WILLIAM    M.    EVARTS. 

MR.  PRESIDENT,  LADIES,  AND  GENTLEMEN  : 

I  do  not  know  what  right  I  have  to  speak,  or  what  claim 
to  be  heard,  on  this  occafion  of  our  festive  homage  to  the  genius 
and  renown  of  Mr.  Bryant,  unless  fimply  as  a  member  of  the 
community  upon  whom,  by  his  refidence  among  them,  he  has  shed 
so  much  lustre. 

Yet,  Sir,  it  is  very  fit  that  the  public  and  learned  profeilions 
should  join  with  the  poets,  and  scholars,  and  artists,  who  have 
shown  themselves  with  so  noble  and  brilliant  a  presence  here  to 
night,  in  this  graceful  and  truthful  testimony  that  the  poet,  more 
fortunate  than  the  prophet  to  whom,  in  some  sort,  he  has  suc 
ceeded,  is  not  without  honor  in  his  own  country.  For  what  preacher 


69 

is  there  among  us  but  will  readily  admit  that,  in  the  larger  phrase 
and  function  of  teacher,  Mr.  Bryant,  in  his  poems  and  in  the  daily 
instructions  of  his  press,  has  been  a  faithful  and  constant  help  and 
support  to  the  sacred  office  in  every  lesson  of  worthy  life  and  of 
personal  and  social  duty.  And  what  lawyer  will  gainsay  that  in 
his  noblest  name  of  Advocate,  the  friend  whom  we  honor  to-night, 
has  been  by  his  fide,  battling  for  truth  and  justice  and  common 
right  in  every  generous  cause  in  the  wide  forum  of  public  opinion, 
that  tribunal  of  last  resort  in  a  free  and  enlightened  country. 

Much  has  been  said,  Sir,  of  Mr.  Bryant's  love  of  nature  and 
of  his  love  of  art,  and  they  have  been  infisted  upon,  with  much 
force  and  beauty,  as  principal  traits  of  his  character  and  of  his 
poems.  So  far,  if  we  may  trust  Mr.  Emerson's  vivid  portraiture, 
did  the  paffionate  love  of  nature  carry  Mr.  Bryant,  that  we  owe  to 
his  great  example  a  practice  which  has  grown  to  be  an  omnipresent 
source  of  displeasure  and  annoyance  to  the  enthufiasts  who  traverse 
our  wide  country  in  search  of  the  picturesque,  to  find  in  every  nook 
and  corner  the  emblazoned  names  and  fame  of  every  quack  and 
mountebank  of  high  or  low  degree  !  For  Mr.  Emerson  tells  us, 
Mr.  Bryant  was  the  first  to  write  his  name  upon  the  rocks  and  the 
mountains,  and  by  the  fide  of  the  rivers  and  the  waterfalls,  thus 
spreading  his  renown  and  drawing  tribute  from  all  nature.  Alas  ! 
to  what  base  perverfions  may  not  a  bright  example  come. 

But,  Mr.  Prefident,  on  Mr.  Bryant's  love  of  art  I  have  some 
thing  more,  and  something  more  serious  to  say — Mr.  Bryant  was 
driven  to  be  a  poet  by  no  neceffity.  He  has  no  such  excuse.  He 
was  bred  and  trained  to  an  honorable,  useful,  and  unselfish  profes- 
fion.  I  mean,  of  course,  the  profeffion  of  the  law,  for  I  may 
safely  appeal  to  the  candid  judgment,  I  will  not  say  of  this  audience 


7° 

{imply,  but  of  the  public  at  large,  to  bear  me  out  in  saying  that, 
if  there  be  any  calling  or  employment  whose  followers  exhibit  in 
their  whole  lives,  in  their  daily  walk  and  conversation,  a  uniform 
tenor  of  disinterested,  uncalculating,  self-denying,  self-sacrificing 
devotion  to  the  good  of  others,  without  the  remotest  notion  of  fee 
or  reward  to  themselves,  it  is  the  profeflion  of  the  law.  Now, 
Sir,  what  might  not  Mr.  Bryant  have  done  for  the  world,  with  his 
preeminent  and  enthufiastic  love  of  Art,  had  he  faithfully  adhered 
to  the  profeflion  of  the  law,  instead  of  waywardly  seeking  his  own 
sweet  will  with  the  muses  ?  Where  and  how  could  his  love  of 
Art  human,  profuse  and  exuberant,  have  flowed  out  into  more 
various  or  wider  channels  of  practical  influence,  than  in  the  ample 
scope  for  invention,  illufion,  false  coloring,  and  deception,  offered 
n  a  prosperous  career  in  the  law  ?  We  are  told,  indeed,  that  as 
it  was,  he  aided  in  founding  a  new  academy  of  Defign.  Pretty 
successfully,  too,  Mr.  Prefident,  if  we  may  judge  of  the  proficiency 
of  the  academicians  by  the  exhibition  we  have  had  from  them  here 
to-night.  Certainly  it  is  a  chef-d'ceuvre  of  defign  worthy  of  a 
whole  academy,  to  charm  your  guest,  and  this  company,  into  an 
admiration  of  the  varied  beauty  and  splendor  of  the  numerous 
pictures  which,  at  so  costly  toil  of  genius,  they  had  made  into  a 
gift  for  this  occafion,  and  yet,  all  that  our  eyes  have  seen  is  a 
leathern  portfolio,  closely  locked,  and  for  the  rest,  we  have  heard 
an  artistic  story  that  the  key  is  accidentally  lost,  and  an  ingenuous 
regret  that  the  fketches  are  unfinljhed!  This  is  very  well  in  a 
small  way.  But,  think  of  Mr.  Bryant,  in  his  love  of  art,  as  the 
founder  of  a  new  school  of  defign,  in  the  profeflion  of  the  law  ;  a 
new  school  of  scheme,  contrivance,  and  chicanery  ;  of  surprise, 
fimulation,  and  subterfuge  !  Who  will  begrudge  a  tear  for  this 


71 

glory  lost  to  Mr.  Bryant,  to  the  profeflion,  and  to  the  world,  when 
he  was  seduced  from  his  early  love  of  the  law  ? 

Mr.  Prefident,  our  profeflion  has  now  borne,  for  more  than  a 
century,  the  reproach  of  having  stolen  from  Apollo  one  of  his 
golden-haired  children  and  changed  him  into  a  dusty-wigged  priest 
of  Themis  ; — Pope's  lament, 

"  How  sweet  an  Ovid  was  in  Murray  loft," 

commemorates  the  wrong.  Thank  Heaven  !  that  account  at  last 
is  settled.  If  we  took  from  the  muses  young  Murray,  and  made 
him  the  Chief  Justice  of  England,  they  have  robbed  us  of  the 
youthful  Bryant  and  made  him  the  Chief  Poet  of  America. 

How  keen  a  lawyer  was  in  Bryant  loft. 


The  last  place  was  reserved  for  the  offerings  of  old  and 
new  friends  of  Mr.  Bryant,  poets  now  or  formerly  of  New 
York  and  its  vicinity. 

LETTER    OF    FITZ-GREENE    HALLECK. 

GUILFORD,  CONN.,  Nov.  $th,  1864. 

MY  DEAR  SIR  : 

I  am  very  grateful  indeed  for  your  kind  invitation,  and  have 
most  ardently  hoped  for  the  pleasure  of  being  with  you  at  the 
Coronation  of  our  Patriarch  friend,  but  I  am  deeply  grieved  to  say 
that  for  a  week  past  I  have  been  quite  ill,  and  find  myself  to-day, 
not  only  disabled  from  journeying,  but  from  leaving  my  room,  to 
my  exceeding  regret  and  disappointment. 


I  must  therefore  rely  upon  your  courtesy  to  present  my  sad 
excuse  to  your  Prefident  and  Secretary  for  the  non-performance  of 
my  promise,  and  to  assure  Mr.  Bryant  that,  although  far  off  in 
body,  I  shall  be  this  evening  near  him  in  spirit,  repeating  the 
homage  which  with  heart,  and  voice,  and  pen,  I  have  during  more 
than  forty  years  of  his  "threescore  and  ten"  been  delighted  to  pay 
him. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  fir, 

Faithfully  yours, 

FITZ-GREENE  HALLECK. 

A.  M.  COZZENS,  Es<i. 

LETTER    OF    N.    P.    WILLIS. 

IDLEWILD,  November  3,  1864. 

To  Hon.  GEORGE  BANCROFT, 

Prefident  of  The  Century. 

DEAR  SIR  : — I  am  in  receipt  of  your  very  kind  and  compli 
mentary  invitation  to  be  present  at  the  celebration  of  the  Birthday 
of  Mr.  Bryant  by  The  Century. 

I  need  not  say  to  you  with  what  unmingled  satisfaction  I  accept 
the  proposed  honor — promifing  myself  the  happiness  of  being  a 
looker-on  at  so  unusual  and  gratifying  a  spectacle. 

Being  at  present  a  sufferer  from  a  diphtheria,  by  which  I  am 
deprived  of  the  voice  I  might  need  to  express  a  certain  gratification 
I  have,  in  connection  with  Mr.  Bryant,  I  will  venture  so  far  as  to 
express  this  on  paper — my  filence,  whether  it  be,  or  be  not,  allotted 
to  me  by  the  feftivities  of  the  evening,  running  the  rifk  of  being  a 
reftraint  to  my  enthufiasm. 


73 

On  coming  to  the  city,  after  graduation  from  college  in  1827, 
and  adopting  a  profeffion  of  which  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT 
was  already  the  moft  fkilful  and  admired  practitioner,  I  unhefitat- 
ingly  gave  in  my  fealty  to  his  preeminence — acknowledging  both 
his  genius  as  an  occafional  poet,  and  his  Ikill  and  fterling  value  as 
a  writer  of  prose  upon  leading  topics.  On  both  of  these  precentor- 
fhips,  he  has  ever  fince  retained  his  hold — lighting  his  occafional 
fire  of  inspiration  on  the  high  and  holy  altar  of  poesy,  and  toiling 
faithfully  and  perseveringly  at  his  more  regular  anvils,  criticism, 
morals,  and  politics.  During  all  this  third  of  a  century,  I  have 
been,  as  it  were,  a  Bryant-disciple^  committing  moft  of  his  poems 
to  heart  with  affectionate  admiration,  and  copying  his  "leaders" 
often,  into  my  own  journal,  with  laudatory  adhefion  and  corrobora- 
tion.  To  be  invited  now,  as  a  veteran  brother  editor  and  poet,  to 
celebrate  the  coming  round  of  Bryant's  seventieth  birthday — thirty- 
seven  years  after  my  firft  acknowledgment  of  bis  pre-eminence — is  a 
very  great  pleasure  to  me,  my  unembarrassed  pen  and  ink  muft  be 
permitted  to  say  ! 

And,  may  I  be  permitted  also  to  specify,  a  little  more  diftinctly, 
my  homage  to  Mr.  Bryant  ? 

His  present  eminence  among  all  parties,  as  the  unqueftioned 
firft  poet  of  the  country,  has  been  gained,  by  him,  in  connection 
with  a  career  which  has  its  daily  trials  and  temptations — a  career 
which  no  one  but  an  experienced  editor  of  a  newspaper  would  be 
likely  fully  to  appreciate.  Let  me  call  the  attention  of  the  brother 
poets  who  are  to  celebrate  his  birthday,  to  the  undlmmed  luftre  of 
the  laurels  worn  so  long.  If  gardener  or  farmer,  mere  scholar  or 
mere  tradesman,  were  to  set  himself  the  ta(k  of  writing  "  Thana- 
topfis,"  or  "The  Life  that  Is,"  or  "The  Cloud  upon  the  Way"— 
10 


74 

any  or  all  of  his  earlier  or  his  Thirty  Poems — how  uninterruptedly 
(if  firft  inspired)  might  it  all  be  done  !  But  for  the  daily  Editor, 
the  Critic,  the  Influencer  of  Public  Morals,  of  Public  Mercantile 
Interefts  and  of  Public  Politics — for  him  to  have  thus  set  himself 
the  tafk,  and  come  from  it  as  does  Bryant — the  acknowledged  moft 
independently  reliable  Editor,  as  well  as  the  moft  irreproachable 
firft  poet — is  an  example  not  given  us  by  the  ancients.  Let  us 
allow  that  we  are,  in  many  ways,  an  improvement  on  the  "bards" 
of  old  time.  They,  proverbially,  in  their  latter  days,  became  the 
victims  of  neglect,  reproaching  the  world,  and  particularly  their 
brother  bards,  for  cruel  depreciation  and  forgetfulness.  In  his  laft 
new  volume  ("  Thirty  Poems  ")  Bryant  gives  us  the  solving  of  this 
riddle.  He  says  thus  to  "The  Poet "  : — 

Thou,  who  wouldft  wear  the  name 

Of  poet  'mid  thy  brethren  of  mankind, 
And  clothe  in  words  of  flame 

Thoughts  that  fhall  live  within  the  general  mind, 
Deem  not  the  framing  of  a  deathless  lay 
The  paftime  of  a  drowsy  summer-day. 

But  gather  all  thy  powers, 

And  wreak  them  on  the  verse  that  thou  doft  weave, 
And  in  thy  lonely  hours, 

At  filent  morning  or  at  wakeful  eve, 
While  the  warm  current  tingles  thro'  thy  veins, 
Set  forth  the  burning  words  in  fluent  ftrains. 
•*  #  *  *  •* 

The  secret  wouldft  thou  know 

To  touch  the  heart  or  fire  the  blood  at  will  ? 
Let  thine  own  eyes  o'erflow  j 

Let  thy  lips  quiver  with  the  paflionate  thrill  ; 


Seize  the  great  thought,  ere  yet  its  power  be  paft, 
And  bind,  in  words,  the  fleet  emotion  faft. 

*  *  *  *  * 
So  ihalt  thou  frame  a  lay 

That  haply  may  endure  from  age  to  age, 
And  they  who  read  fhall  say : 

What  witchery  hangs  upon  this  poet's  page ! 
What  art  is  his  the  written  spells  to  find 
That  sway  from  mood  to  mood  the  willing  mind. 

*  *  *  *  * 

It  is  thus  that  he  has  himself  a&ed  "  The  Poet,"  and  it  is  in 
this  guise,  and  with  the  coronet  beftowed  by  his  contemporaries, 
that  we  commit  him  to  Pofterity. 

Hoping  to  avail  myself  of  your  kindness,  and  be  at  leaft  a 
looker-on  at  this  moft  novel  and  interesting  ceremony,  I  remain, 

Dear  Mr.  Bancroft, 

Yours  most  faithfully, 

N.  P.  WILLIS. 

BRYANT. 

BY    E.    A.    STANSBURY. 

"  Show  us  a  Bard,"  the  old  world  cried, 
With  look  of  scorn  and  tone  defiant ; 

Columbia  turned  with  queenly  pride 
And  pointed  to  the  name  of  BRYANT. 

"  Show  us  a  Man,  with  steadfast  soul, 
On  God  and  Right  and  Truth  reliant, 

Unbent  though  tempests  fhake  the  pole ;" 
Again  the  name  me  gave  was  BRYANT. 


76 


Ah !  blest,  thus  great  and  true  to  be, 
Yet  still  with  heart  unchilled  and  pliant, 

My  Country  !  saved,  restored,  and  free, 
Thy  purest  name  fhall  still  be  BRYANT. 

NOVEMBER,  1864. 

Mr.  Street,  of  Albany,  recited  with  great  earneftness  the 
following  lines : 

POEM. 

BY    ALFRED    B.    STREET. 

A  fadeless  wreath  is  thine 
Oh  poet  of  our  love  !  its  radiant  twine 

Not  from  the  Old  World's  flowers, 
But  the  unchanging  foliage  of  the  pine  ; — 
Tree  of  our  land  that,  century-cinctured,  towers, 
Foot  on  the  rock  and  forehead  in  the  fky  ; 
Yet  its  deep  bosom  thrilling  with  a  figh 
Although  its  boughs  be  glossed  in  golden  dye  ; — 

Emblem  of  thy  true  lyre 
Sounding  in  solemn  wail  and  bright  in  joyous  fire  ! 

The  old  oak,  ivy-tressed, 
Whose  acorn  rung  on  Arthur's  warrior-crest 

Along  his  knightly  way, 
No  minstrel  fervor  kindles  in  thy  breast. 


77 


But  the  wild  hemlock,  where  the  hunter  lay 
By  his  lone  watch-fire,  whence  the  startled  flight 
Of  the  young  eagle  that,  with  shrinkless  fight, 
Still  dares  the  sun-flash,  swings  his  soaring  height 

Within  thy  native  strain, 
And,  frowning  in  his  shade,  the  red  man's  flitting  train. 

Thy  full-orbed  genius  sought 
The  blended  realm  of  Nature  and  of  Thought. 

Heart  watched  befide  the  eye  j 
The  spirit  colored  what  the  vifion  caught ; 
The  warm  life  mingled  with  the  earth  and  Iky ; 
Boughs  waved  with  mufings ;  contemplation  breathed 
From  flowers ;  and  Song's  bright  brow  was  never  wreathed 
With  more  befitting  gifts  than  thine,  bequeathed 

To  Time,  its  lofty  plan 
So  true  that  genius  wrought  to  nature  and  to  man. 

And  Nature  lives  in  thee  ! 
The  soul-expanding  dome — its  twin,  the  sea — 

Peaks,  pillars  of  the  cloud — 

The  cataract's  crash — the  thunder's  roll — the  free, 
Grand  winds — the  stately  sweep  of  woods — the  crowd 
Of  bird,  tree,  flower ;  and,  in  her  essence  glassed, 
Nature  with  grateful  love  shall  hold  thee  fast, 
As  holds  the  gem  its  hues,  while  years  shall  last ; — 

And  every  age  shall  praise, 
For  Nature  every  breast  in  close  communion  sways. 


Each  loved  theme  fings  and  shines 
In  Memory's  heart ; — its  fields  Green  River  twines  ; 

Dread  Thanatopfis  chants  ; 
The  Ages  speak ;  soar  the  cragged  Apennines ; 
Red  floats  the  Waterfowl  to  sunset  haunts ; 
Flashes  the  fiery  charge  of  Marion's  Men ; 
The  unshorn  Fields  roll  billowy  from  the  ken  ; 
The  murdered  Traveller  moulders  in  his  glen  ; 

Monument  Mountain  towers ; 
And  cold  November  blights  the  gentle  race  of  Flowers. 

Thy  matin-strain  arose 
When  native  song  scarce  breathed ;  while  now  it  flows, 

Sounding  on  every  fide, 
Still  in  our  hearts  thy  golden  mufic  glows. 
Our  mighty  land  looks  on  thy  wreath  with  pride  ; 
The  future's  plaudits  echo  in  thine  ear ; 
Thy  statue  greets  thee  still  in  thy  career ; 
Thy  star  breaks,  blazing,  in  life's  sunset  clear ; 

Fame  steps  in  front  of  death 
In  token  of  thy  tones  immortal  in  her  breath. 

Day  sheds  its  parting  sheen  ; 
The  heavenward  rays  stream  softly  o'er  the  scene  ; 

Birds  twitter  into  fleep  ; 

The  loitering  kine  pace  home  through  darkening  green  j 
Along  the  trees,  faint  flumberous  breathings  creep ; 
Far,  dreamy  sounds  flit,  melting  on  the  air 


79 

That  eastward  thickens,  while  in  hues  more  fair 

The  west  burns  down ;  bowed  Nature,  wrapt  in  prayer, 

And  robed  in  deepening  light, 
Hushes  her  peaceful  heart  to  hail  the  hovering  night. 

Mr.  Stoddard's  ftanzas  were  read  by  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor. 


VATES   PATRICE. 

NOVEMBER  30,  1794 — NOVEMBER  30,  1864. 

There  came  a  Woman  in  the  night, 

When  winds  were  whist,  and  moonlight  smiled, 
Where,  in  his  mother's  arms  who  flept, 
There  lay  a  new-born  child. 

She  gazed  at  him  with  loving  looks, 
And  while  her  hand  upon  his  head 
She  laid,  in  bleffing  and  in  power, 

In  flow,  deep  words  me  said : 

"  This  child  is  mine.     Of  all  my  sons 

Are  none  like  what  the  lad  mall  be, — 
Though  these  are  wise,  and  those  are  strong, 
And  all  are  dear  to  me. 

"  Beyond  their  arts  of  peace  and  war 

The  gift  that  unto  him  belongs, — 
To  see  my  face,  to  read  my  thoughts, 
To  learn  my  filent  songs. 


8o 


"  The  elder  fisters  of  my  race 

Shall  taunt  no  more  that  I  am  dumb  ; 
Hereafter  I  {hall  fing  through  him, 
In  ages  yet  to  come ! " 

She  stooped,  and  kissed  his  baby  mouth, 

Whence  came  a  breath  of  melody, 
As  from  the  closed  leaves  of  a  rose 
The  murmur  of  a  bee  ! 

Thus  did  me  consecrate  the  child, 

His  more  than  mother  from  that  hour, 
Albeit  at  first  he  knew  her  not, 

Nor  guessed  his  fleeping  power. 

But  not  the  less  me  hovered  near, 

And  touched  his  spirit  unawares  ; 
Burned  in  the  red  of  morning  Ikies, 
And  breathed  in  evening  airs. 

Unfelt  in  his,  her  guiding  hand 

Withdrew  him  from  the  haunts  of  men, 
To  where  her  secret  bowers  were  built 
In  wood,  and  grove,  and  glen. 

Sometimes  he  caught  a  tranfient  glimpse 
Of  her  broad  robe,  that  swept  before ; 
Deep  in  the  heart  of  ancient  woods, 
Or  by  the  sounding  more. 


8i 


One  prosperous  day  he  chanced  to  see 

(Be  sure  'twas  in  a  lonely  place) 
Her  glance  of  pride,  that  sought  his  own — 
At  last  her  noble  face ! 

Not  as  it  fronts  her  children  now, 

With  clouded  brows,  and  looks  of  ire, 
And  eyes  that  would  be  blind  with  tears, 
But  for  their  quenchless  fire  ! 

But  happy,  gracious,  beautiful, 

And  more  imperial  than  a  Queen ; 
A  woman  of  majestic  mould, 

And  most  maternal  mien. 

And  he  was  happy.     For  in  her 

("For  he,"  me  said,  "mall  read  my  mind,"; 
He  saw  the  glory  of  the  earth, 

The  hope  of  humankind. 

Thenceforth,  wherever  he  might  walk, 
Through  forest  aisles,  or  by  the  sea ; 
Where  floats  the  flower-like  butterfly, 
And  hums  the  drowsy  bee  ; 

By  rock-ribbed  hills,  and  penfive  vales 

That  stretch  in  made  between  ; 
And  by  the  soft-complaining  brooks 

That  make  the  meadows  green ; 
11 


82 


He  felt  her  presence  everywhere, 

To-day  was  glad,  to-morrow  grave  ; 
And  what  she  gave  to  him  in  thought, 
To  us  in  song  he  gave. 

In  stately  songs,  in  solemn  hymns, 

(Few  are  so  clear,  and  none  so  high,) 
That  mirrored  her,  in  calm  and  storm, 
As  mountain  lakes  the  fky. 

And  evermore  one  Shape  appeared, 

To  comfort  now,  and  now  command  ; 
A  bearded  man,  with  many  scars, 
Who  bore  a  battle-brand  ! 

And  she  was  filled  with  serious  joy, 
To  know  her  poet  followed  him  ; 
Not  lofing  heart,  nor  bating  hope, 
When  others'  faith  was  dim. 

And,  as  the  years  went  flowly  by, 

And  she  grew  stronger,  and  more  wise, 
Stretching  her  hands  o'er  broader  lands, 
And  grander  destinies : 

And  he,  our  poet,  poured  his  hymns, 

Serene,  prophetic,  sad, — as  each 
Became  a  part  of  her  renown, 

And  of  his  native  speech  ; 


83 

She  wove,  by  turns,  a  wreath  for  him, — 

The  bufmess  of  her  idle  hours ; 
And  here  were  sprigs  of  mountain  pine, 
And  there  were  prairie  flowers. 

And  now,  even  in  her  sorest  need, 

Pale,  bleeding,  faint  in  every  limb, — 
She  still  remembers  what  he  is, 
And  comes  to  honor  him. 

For  hers,  not  ours,  the  songs  we  bring, — 
The  flowers,  the  mufic,  and  the  light ; 
And  'tis  her  hand  that  lays  the  wreath 
On  his  gray  head  to-night ! 

R.  H.  STODDARD. 

NOVEMBER  3d,  1864. 

One  more  poem  graced  the  evening ;  the  tribute  of  a 
long  and  intimate  friendfhip. 


TO    WILLIAM    CULLEN    BRYANT— ON    HIS 
SEVENTIETH    BIRTHDAY. 

BY    H.  T.  TUCKERMAN. 

Calm  priest  of  Nature,  her  maternal  hand 

Led  thee,  a  reverent  child, 
To  mountain-altars,  by  the  lonely  strand, 

And  through  the  forest  wild. 


Haunting  her  temple,  filled  with  love  and  awe, 

To  thy  responfive  youth 
The  harmonies  of  her  benignant  law 

Revealed  consoling  truth. 

Thenceforth,  when  toiling  in  the  grasp  of  Care 

Amid  the  eager  throng, 
A  votive  seer,  her  greetings  thou  didst  bear, 

Her  oracles  prolong. 

The  vagrant  winds  and  the  far  heaving  main 

Breathed  in  thy  chastened  rhyme, 
Their  latent  mufic  to  the  soul  again, 

Above  the  din  of  time. 

The  seasons,  at  thy  call,  renewed  the  spell 

That  thrilled  our  better  years, 
The  primal  wonder  o'er  our  spirits  fell, 

And  woke  the  fount  of  tears. 

And  Faith's  monition,  like  an  organ's  strain, 

Followed  the  sea-bird's  flight, 
The  river's  bounteous  flow,  the  ripening  grain, 

And  stars'  unfathomed  light. 

In  the  dank  woods  and  where  the  meadows  gleam, 

The  lowliest  flower  that  smiled 
To  wisdom's  vigil  or  to  fancy's  dream, 

Thy  gentle  thought  beguiled. 


85 

They  win  fond  glances  in  the  prairies  sweep, 

And  where  the  moss-clumps  lie, 
A  welcome  find  when  through  the  mould  they  creep, 

A  requiem  when  they  die. 

Unstained  thy  song  with  paffions  fitful  hues 

Or  pleasure's  reckless  breath, 
For  nature's  beauty  to  thy  virgin  muse 

Was  solemnized  by  death. 

O'er  life's  majestic  realm  and  dread  repose. 

Entranced  with  holy  calm, 
From  the  rapt  soul  of  boyhood  then  uprose 

The  memorable  psalm. 

And  roaming  lone  beneath  the  woodland  shades, 

Thy  meditative  prayer 
In  the  umbrageous  aisles  and  choral  glades 

We  murmur  unaware  ; 

Or  track  the  ages  with  prophetic  cheer, 

Lured  by  thy  chant  sublime, 
Till  bigotry  and  kingcraft  disappear 

In  Freedom's  chosen  clime, — 

While  on  her  ramparts  with  intrepid  mien, 

O'er  faction's  angry  sea, 
Thy  voice  proclaims,  undaunted  and  serene, 

The  watchwords  of  the  free. 


86 


Not  in  vague  tones  or  tricks  of  verbal  art 

The  pliant  paean  rung  ; 
Thine  the  clear  utterance  of  an  earnest  heart, 

The  limpid  Saxon  tongue. 

Our  country's  minstrel !  in  whose  crystal  verse 

With  tranquil  joy  we  trace 
Her  native  glories,  and  the  tale  rehearse 

Of  her  primeval  race, — 

Blest  are  thy  laurels,  that  unchallenged  crown 

Worn  brow  and  filver  hair, 
For  truth  and  manhood  consecrate  renown, 

And  her  pure  triumph  share  ! 


It  being  now  near  twelve  o'clock,  the  Prefident  announced 
that  an  artift  member  of  the  Century  had  received  a  com- 
miffion  from  a  brother  member,  to  make  a  colossal  bud  of 
Mr.  Bryant,  to  be  placed  in  the  Central  Park  of  New  York 
City ;  and  thereupon  the  meeting  was  dissolved. 


87 
APPENDIX. 

The  names  of  J.  G.  BROWN,  JOHN  ROGERS,  and  THOMAS 
P.  ROSSITER  are  to  be  added  to  the  lift  of  the  artift  members, 
who  presented  fketches  to  Mr.  Bryant.  The  copy  of  the 
following  impromptu  sonnet  by  a  lady  of  New  York  City, 
was  received  by  the  Committee  on  Publication  too  late  for 
insertion  in  its  appropriate  place. 

AT    THE    CENTURY. 

November  $tb,  1864. 

BY    MARY    ELIZABETH    WILSON    SHERWOOD. 

Bryant  and  Bancroft !  well  assorted  pair ! 
Beneath  the  Laurel  and  the  fragrant  Pine 
Your  country's  lovers  saw  you  {landing  there, 
At  once  a  memory,  a  hope,  a  fign. 
The  ftirring  mufic  of  the  Poet's  lyre 
And  the  Hiftorian's  clear  resounding  line 
The  nation's  heart  with  courage  {hall  inspire, 
And  its  crude  gold  to  purer  form  refine. 
The  hour  was  dark,  yet  as  with  cheerful  face 
We  honored  him,  the  Poet,  Patriot  true, 
Unwonted  gladness  seemed  to  fill  the  place  ; 
Nor  can  our  hopes  refuse  to  spring  anew, 
While  Bryant's  verse  leads  on  our  men  to  glory, 
And  Bancroft's  pen  illuminates  their  ftory. 


COMMITTEE    OF  THE   CENTURT  FOR    THE 
ERTANT  FESTIVAL. 

GEORGE  BANCROFT,  Prefident.  WILLIAM  J.  HOPPIN, 

A.  R.  MACDONOUGH,  Secretary.  Louis  LANG, 

JOHN  PRIESTLEY,  Treasurer.  JOHN  H.  GOURLIE, 

LEWIS  M.  RUTHERFORD,  WILLIAM  KEMBLE, 
THOMAS  HICKS,  Trustees. 

PRESENTERS   OF  THE  PORTFOLIO  AND 
CARVED   STAND. 

WILLIAM  T.  BLODGETT,  JAS.  LORIMER  GRAHAM,  JR., 

A.  M.  COZZENS,  M.  K.  KITCHEN, 

C.  E.  DETMOLD,  M.  KNOEDLER, 

JOHN  H.  GOURLIE,  H.  Q..  MARQUAND, 

LEVI  P.  MORTON. 

HOUSE   COMMITTEE. 

MARSHALL  PEPOON,         ANDREW  G.  BININGER, 
JAMES  C.  CARTER. 

COMMITTEE    ON  PUBLICATION. 

J.  LORIMER  GRAHAM,  JR.,         JOHN  H.  GOURLIE, 
WILLIAM  H.  APPLETON. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 


Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

15MAV63PY      * 

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General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


